Crossing Lines

This is from the blog Homeward Bound: 

Of all the things that have been happening stateside the past few days, the most heartbreaking of all has been the silence of the church. Not only has the church been wholly silent save for a few voices here and there that couldn’t help but make their objection known, but some hip, cool, and socially edgy pastors even saw fit to join parades and apologize for the stick-in-the-mud Christians who still cling to the notion of anything being sin or sinful.

In private e-mails with certain people I’ve been getting the ‘all sin is equal and we shouldn’t focus on homosexuality’ line, but since this is the ‘gotcha’ question of our day you can’t help but focus on it.

Nobody is asking preachers on television what their opinion is on lying, cheating, or bearing false witness, but the first question out of the gate is always, ‘what do you think about homosexual marriage?’

The conversation has moved beyond the act of homosexuality and the fact that God calls it sin, into the land of whether or not homosexual marriage is something to oppose, or embrace wholeheartedly in our suicide run toward judgment.

As a nation we’ve crossed another line, and as far as I am concerned it was an inevitability as long as the church continued its slumber, which it has. The only sound being heard from most churches are snores and the occasional belch after pizza night, with prayer, supplication, brokenness and repentance having been long abandoned for things that are easier on the knees, and more than just a handful of old fuddy-duddies could enjoy.

Our only mission is to grow our mission without a second’s thought as to the quality of members we are growing our missions with. We have talked ourselves into believing that the impressive size of our congregations proves that God is with us and that His stamp of approval shines bright upon our compromise and heresy, refusing to take into account that a tree is known by its fruit and right now our fruit is poisoned. Our fruit is killing innocent souls. Our fruit is strengthening the hand of the wicked and causing the hearts of the righteous to be grieved.

Dare we still beat our breast and say God is with us? Dare we still stand proud and say God bless our nation? Dare we still assume His protection or favor after all we have done to shun Him and His precepts as a nation? If we do then we are delusional, and yes I know that many a soul live their delusion every day, believing wholeheartedly that God cares not for what you do, what you say, how you live, what you practice, as long as you raised a hand in some sort of edifice calling itself a church at some point in your life.

As a nation we have crossed a line and there is no going back. As a nation we have made our position crystal clear Very soon God will, in no uncertain terms, make very clear what He thinks of the decision we’ve made.

For those who look at the situation and think to themselves ‘at least it’s over’ let me be the fly in your ointment and say it’s not over by a longshot. In order to know when this will be over you must first understand the intent with which this entire drama unfolded, and it wasn’t so two men who sodomize each other on a regular basis could have a marriage license. The intent, the endgame, the big picture is the utter destruction of the family unit, a complete rejection of morality, and a wholesale doing away with anyone still clinging to Biblical precepts and principles.

I’ve been telling you persecution was coming for the better part of six years, and now we have but little time left to prepare our hearts if we haven’t done so already.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr. 

The Father's Response to the US Supreme Court Ruling that Gay Marriage is a Right 

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur
To the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world
By Tim Shey

Death and Resurrection
Alpha and Omega
You shall know the truth

Offering for our sin
Friend of thieves and outcasts

Adam's curse is broken
The truth shall set you free
One death for so many
Not a single bone was broken
Enemy is vanquished
Manifold temptations
Early you shall seek Me
No more tears and weeping
Today is now eternal

Leviticus 17:  11:  "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."

Isaiah 53: 5:  "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

Revelation 1: 5:  "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood."

Altar
Shiloh
Yom Kippur--Day of Atonement

Quote from C.T. Studd

This is from the blog Grace and Truth:

“The best training for a soldier of Christ is not merely a theological college. They always seem to turn out sausages of varying lengths, tied at each end, without the glorious freedom a Christian ought to abound and rejoice in. You see, when in hand-to-hand conflict with the world and the devil, neat little biblical confectionery is like shooting lions with a pea-shooter: one needs a man who will let himself go and deliver blows right and left as hard as he can hit, trusting in the Holy Ghost. The training is not that of the schools but of the market: it’s the hot, free heart and not the balanced head that knocks the devil out. Nothing but forked-lightning Christians will count. A lost reputation is the best degree for Christ’s service. It is not so much the degree of arts that is needed, but that of hearts, loyal and true, that love not their lives to the death: large and loving hearts which seek to save the lost multitudes, rather than guard the ninety-nine well-fed sheep in the British pen”.

--C.T. Studd

On the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta - or should it be 1,400th?

Magna Carta, 1556 Edition

This is from the blog Richard's Watch:

Today marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta to which King John affixed his seal under the demands of his barons in order to limit his regal powers. Also, it’s appropriate to tell you now about an aspect of this historic event omitted from the preamble in prophetical points of last month’s general election.
Whilst writing this I’m intrigued to have received a reader’s unwitting contribution that’s made me suspect some pieces of the Lord’s invisible jigsaw are falling into place!

Meaning of number 8

As an anniversary, today starts the 8th century since the birth of that important legislative declaration. Biblically, 8 signifies a new beginning, as in Genesis with the second week of creation continuing after the Almighty rested for a day, and in the new creation after the Flood with the survival of only 8 persons. There are not a few other significant references to that number – especially Jesus’ name in Greek – as in The Bible Study Site.

8th cycle of centuries

Thus, the start of the 8th cycle of 100 years may have a special significance in view of:

• the improving spiritual atmosphere visiting Christian leaders have noted,
• the many prophetic words of promise delivered and declared over these lands,
• the increasing activity of the Holy Spirit within the British Isles.

Now, when we consider the Lord has also been active in connection with the election we can expect this to continue into the political realm and, hopefully, to bless this nation and its leaders with a real return to righteousness.  As noted however, this doesn’t diminish the need to intercede and pray such changes through to manifestation (eg. see Dr Stone’s remarks at #4 of my coverage of the election).

Further observations

To recap, I noted this medieval document, “Established for the first time the principle that everybody, including the king, was subject to the common law of the land. The British Library states that, although nearly a third of the text was deleted or substantially rewritten within ten years, and almost all its clauses have been repealed in modern times, Magna Carta still remains a cornerstone of the British constitution. I’d add that its great influence extends to the Commonwealth’s and to the United States of America’s legal systems.”
In view of this lengthy document’s importance in world history may I encourage you to consider a few more points gleaned from my weekend reading? But please don’t miss the grand finale below! (If inspired to read more, the links provided herein may prove useful for further reference.)

Member of the European Parliament for SE England Daniel Hannan refers to 18th Century PM William Pitt the Elder calling Magna Carta, “the Bible of the English Constitution”. He himself likens it to, “the Torah of the English-speaking peoples: the text that sets us apart while, at the same time speaking truths to the rest of humanity”.

Hannan also recognises the charter’s provisions had been prefigured to a small extent in earlier centuries, yet the document of 1215 AD was different in including an enforcement mechanism. “Instead of leaving it to the king to decide whether he had kept his word, it instituted a form of conciliar government which was to evolve directly into the Parliament that meets at Westminister today”. Of course, parliamentarians’ troubles with Charles I and subsequent civil war used Magna Carta’s provisions as an essential sledgehammer to crack and sever a brick-hard nut!

However, one of our Justices of the Supreme Court as well as distinguished medieval historian, Lord Sumpton, dismisses Magna Carta as being “far less significant in the development of modern rights than the French Revolution”! He argues,

“The modern perception of the Charter as the source of all our liberties was largely the invention of Sir Edward Coke, the seventeenth century lawyer, antiquarian and politician.

“Coke, who was widely regarded as the most learned lawyer of his day, rescued Magna Carta from obscurity and transformed it from a somewhat technical catalogue of feudal regulations, into the foundation document of the English constitution. It is really Coke’s idea of Magna Carta that has been exported to the world, and not the version that King John or his barons would have recognised.
“The libertarian tradition in England is one of this country’s great contributions to the development of the modern world. But its power does not depend on its antiquity.

“Our libertarian tradition actually dates from the constitutional settlement which followed the civil wars of the seventeenth century and the deposition of King James II in 1688. Magna Carta frankly has nothing to do with it.”

Click for the Key Points on differences between Magna Carta and ‘Declaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen’, to compare the difference between the British and the French, or Napoleonic, principles.
Nevertheless, those who praise the Great Charter as the published precursor of the rule of law, rather than the diktat of ruling executives, are right to do so.

1,400th anniversary (approx)

The earliest Anglo-Saxon law code is that of King Aethelbert of Kent after conversion to Christianity and issued between 597 and 616AD. The 12th Century manuscript known as Textus Roffensis is the only surviving copy of those codes:

Cambridge Historical Encylcopedia of Great Britain and Ireland – ed. Christopher Haigh (publ 1985)

Subsequent 7th century Kentish codes and laws of Ine of Wales mainly concerned payments for injury, infringement of property rights and breaches of public order. The 9th century King Alfred’s code synthesized elements from Kentish, Mercian and West Saxon codes. The influence of Anglo-Saxon law is apparent in legal measures of kings William I (‘The Conqueror’) and Henry I.

Intriguing God-incidence

Lastly, whilst drafting this I’ve been reading comments submitted by a fellow blogger in the States of whom I’ve known for a few years and today got re-connected. So what’s that got to do with this post? Quite a lot. In fact, I think you’ll be most surprised.

Tim Shey at HitchHikeAmerica adds this perspicuous comment to my Does a spiritual yet political trend link USA to Britain? without realising it’s directly related to this current post. In fact, he puts the whole subject into a Godly perspective:

‘George Bernard Shaw once said that the United States and Great Britain were divided by a common language. It is no accident that the United States is English-speaking and Great Britain is English-speaking. It is because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The United States-Great Britain-English-speaking-Military-Industrial-Spiritual Complex is the great counterpoise to Satan’s Spiritual Babylon (confusion; confused languages because of the sin of the Tower of Babel).

‘Certain principalities and powers of darkness were taken out in England back in the 1600s (the rise of the King James Bible, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution) and similar principalities and powers of darkness were taken out in the 1700s in the American Colonies (the great revival before the Revolution, the Revolution itself, the Constitution of the United States). The slave trade was ended in England, I believe, in the 1790s and later the slave trade was ended in the United States; and of course, later the Lord judged the United States for slavery in the great Civil War of 1861-1865.

‘No doubt, the Lord set up this Anglo-American/Judaeo-Christian alliance to spread the Gospel and also to destroy tyranny in different parts of the world through military power: Naziism, Communism, Islamo-Fascism. The British Empire was no accident, the rise of American power and influence was no accident, but both nations must realize that the Lord God in Heaven can easily take down a nation or an empire, if they don’t put the Lord first in their lives. Look at what happened to Nebuchadnezzar: at one moment he was the greatest king on the planet, the same day the Lord humbled him and Nebuchadnezzar went crazy.’

Now is that spooky or just serendipity?  Is it really coincidental?? Or, is the Lord in it???

I’m of the opinion it’s a superb example of ‘God-incidence’ as a ‘Bridge over the Pond‘! Wouldn’t you agree?

Is a similar but far greater ‘taking out’ about to happen in our day, as some prophetical voices are saying?

Keep watching…

Magna Carta---Wikipedia
Magna Carta, 1556 Edition
English Bible History
Magna Carta's 800th centenary:  a better perspective
REVIEW--Magna Carta:  Law, Liberty, Legacy

Revival Now - but what follows?

This is from the blog The White Man:

“It is a delicate matter, to write up revival!” wrote Dr. Joe Church, who, by his own account, seeded the East Africa Revival in 1929 by studying the Scofield Reference Bible with Simeon Nsibambi in Kampala, Uganda. Full revival was then launched from Gahini, Rwanda in the early 1930's as preachers fanned out with the message of repentance unto salvation.

Nay, counter the Ugandan Anglicans. The Balokole Revival started there in 1922, and spread to Rwanda from there in the late 1930's--and it was in spite of, rather than due to, Joe Church and his associates, who objected to their revival being taken over by unruly natives.

And an unruly revival it did become. As the Balokole threw aside both Anglican liturgical ceremonies and the animistic syncretism that had crept into them, they had to contend with a rash of new hyperspiritual fads, such as meeting naked (to demonstrate a complete freedom from lustful desires), ecstatic utterances (which had actually begun in 1916 in the Uriya Forest, and 1912 among the Luo), and dramatic physical signs such as collapsing, hyperventilating, quaking, grunting, shrieking, and thrashing--behaviour usually associated in those climes with demon possession. Muslim evangelists produced similar manifestations in their disciples, but without the public prayer and confession of sins that characterized the Anglican revival.

So, like revivals tend to be, it was messy. Yet it swept across East Africa for decades until it finally burned out in the 1950's. Lasting legacies of the East Africa Revival are numerous indigenous religious movements, still outside the mainstream of Christianity. And although Rwanda and Burundi remained over 90% professing Christian, what good did that do in the decades that followed, when both nations reeled under one genocidal bloodbath after another, that cost upwards of a million lives?

Be careful what you pray for, as you may just get it--and its typical aftermath. It's difficult to see how the countries at the epicenter of the East Africa Revival--Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi--could be any worse off now, had revival never swept their land.

Revival in Indiana
New Dawn in East Africa:  The East African Revival 
Revival in Ireland?

The Future in Hindsight

This is from the blog Homeward Bound:

Before Romania was a democratic country it was a communist country, and before it was a communist country it was a monarchy. With each transition certain things took place that shaped the nation for the next fifty years, and most often not for the better. One need not be a student of history to see certain key events play out and draw certain conclusions based on said events.

One of the first things the communists did when they came to power was strip the rich of their wealth, imprison every voice of dissent, and appoint little more than troglodytes to positions of power.

Nothing is more dangerous than an imbecile with power, and all that was required of them was to remember who gave them said power, and obey whenever called upon to act.

And so, people who had worked their entire lives to build something for themselves were kicked out of their homes, and their homes were given to others who never had either the desire or wherewithal to succeed in life, all in the name of equality.

A strange thing happened when these homes were given away to those who had neither worked to build them or upkeep them. Within a matter of years these homes were nothing more than hollow shells, raped of their beauty and their once stunning presence, because those who had been given stewardship of them did nothing to maintain them and treated them as one would something they didn’t have to work for.

Even here, in Botosani, a relatively small and poor city, there are the husks of once breathtaking homes, and one need only close their eyes and imagine what they were like at their peak to be both speechless and broken of heart.

What all those foaming at the mouth and screaming about equality, and taking it all away from the rich to give to the poor don’t understand is that equality has always been and will always be a fantasy. No matter the government, no matter the system, no matter the restrictions, there will always be those who will outwork, outthink, and outhustle the vast majority, and make a better life for themselves and their families.

Give a man who didn’t have to work for it a mansion, and within a hare’s breath it will be turned into a dung heap, because what you didn’t work for you don’t respect, and what you don’t respect you don’t strive to maintain.

I am poor by choice. I’ve made money in the past, I know how to make money in the present, but money does not appeal to me, nor do material possessions. Wealth and the message I preach are irreconcilable and forever destined to be apart, and that bothers me not an iota. I choose to see my daughter grow up rather than spend my time and energy amassing possessions. Those experiences are more valuable to me than a new car or a big home. That said, this is a personal choice, and as such I cannot ask someone who has chosen to pursue wealth to give what he has amassed to me because I chose not to pursue the selfsame wealth.

I write this article today because given that another election is around the corner, our beloved politicians will once again be beating the inequality drum at a fevered pitch, not bothering to include themselves among the evil rich, but though they are multi-millionaires in their own right somehow consider themselves removed from said title.

When you fuel the fire and fan the flame of such a mentality, when you make a mass of individuals believe they are entitled to something they didn’t work, sweat, bleed, and sacrifice for, it becomes impossible to put the genie back in the bottle and have things be as they once were.

The utter desperation to win elections have made people nearsighted, and as yet they do not see the reality that once you let this particular dog off the leash it will not stop until it has devoured everything in its path.

If you want to see the end result of what this mentality produces you need look no further than former communist bloc countries where the entrepreneurs, the visionaries, the educated, and the hard working were stripped of their possessions only to watch them be squandered by the mobs who were told that they deserved what others had worked for simply because it was more fair this way.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.