The Church Murdered Dr. Tiller

You may have heard about the murder of Dr. Tiller (the killer). The Dr who performed the late term murders on children who could have as easily been delivered and lived. He was interestingly enough murdered while serving as usher at his church. Apparently Tiller was a professing Christian who even went so far as to baptize the corpses of his victims in the name of Jesus. There is a very sad commentary here about the state of the church in America where this kind of behaviour would be tolerated by a professing Christian. Doug Phillips has a good article about this tragedy called George Tiller is Dead, for whom shall we mourn?, I would only add to Phillips article by saying that we SHOULD mourn for Tiller, and also recognise the sin of Tiller's church in an effort to keep from this sin in our own churches.

In fact I'm sure in the twisted mind of Tiller's killer the hypocrisy of his being a welcome and professing participant in a Christian church only added fuel to the hatred that led to his murder. The Bible is clear that in our fellowships we must admonish one another in order to keep each other from sin. The bible even outlines specific steps to take to confront a fellow believer who is sinning.

Matthew 18:15 If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

So here is a clear command of Christ of how to handle a brother who has sinned against us, here is the way by which we reconcile ourselves to each other. The wisdom in this passage is profound. But Dr. Tiller was overtly engaged in a horrendous sin, countless people had obviously shared with him that what he was doing was wrong, yet he continued, even to the point of using his "Christianity" to somehow purify his evil deeds.

Paul says:

1 Corinthians5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.4 When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Paul pleads with the church not to overlook overtly practiced sin and be arrogant about it. This man's eternity is at stake. Expel him! Do not allow him to somehow justify his behaviour by allowing him to remain in your fellowship while he persists in his sin unrepentant. This is for HIS good, so that his sin will work out it's course in him, so that his Spirit might be saved. He is to be delivered to Satan so that he may carry out his sin to it's logical conclusion, the destruction of the flesh. I believe that in this process the man may not die, but as he sows the seed of sin in his life, he will begin to reap the fruits of it, and see that it can only lead to death, and therefore repent and turn to Christ and be welcomed back into the fellowship.

Let's be clear, these actions are toward the professing Christians of your congregation. Not toward unbelievers. Unbelievers have NO POWER to overcome sin, they must hear and receive the Gospel so that they can repent. But once someone has proclaimed Christ and attests to being a Christian, then it is the loving duty of his brothers and sisters in Christ to hold him to that standard in love and out of fearful concern for his eternity.

If only Dr. Tiller's church would have done this. If only they would have, in love, said to him, "No sir, you are not welcome in our fellowship so long as you perform your sin, you proclaim Christ, therefore until you turn from your sin ,we must cast you out to be consumed by it." If they would have taken this stand Dr. Tiller may still be alive today, but because they didn't, the likelihood is that Dr. Tiller's eternity in Hell will be on the hands of the Reformation Lutheran Church and it's elders and teachers.

So do I feel sad for Tiller? Of course. He is most likely in Hell, unless somehow at this particular church service or sometime before then, he had repented and turned to Christ. He reaped what he sowed, and that is sad. He was a doctor, a bright man, possibly even a man with a misguided heart to help people. But he did not seek the council of God and was led away by Satan, with the blessing of the church, to his death. The church could have saved his live, and possibly his soul. We created a martyr for the cause of abortionists, when we could have created a repentant man who would have been powerful in putting an end to the wicked craft that he practiced.

Jesus or monkey bones?

Well the athiest have picked their idol. Here is a picture:



Their saviour has finally been unearthed. Athiest all over the world are rejoicing, the triumphant entry of their monkey king proves that there is no God to judge them. Praise be to the primate prince, who died and was buried and 1,716,675,000,000 days later was found still dead hanging on the wall of an art collector, all to prove that there is no such thing as sin. Now when anyone tries to hold you to a higher standard just point to the proof (with your middle finger), there is no standard for truth (other than this monkey which serves as the sole standard that there is no standard).

Do you not understand? Are you intellectually unable to see the significance of this monumental monkey? That's ok, just submit your will and the lapses in your intellegence to those elite minds among us who will give you constant assurances that this monkey is infact as magnificant as they claim. Surely submitting to the sovereignty of an intellectual elite is preferable to the personal auto-determinination practiced in centuries past. Look at the monkey and marvel, hear the words of the PHD's and know with joy that there is no God.

"The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries." - David Rockefeller

Do you believe in God?

The thing is, if you believe there is a God and if you believe that He is Good, then you have a great problem. By admitting His existence and his goodness you must condemn yourself. If God's goodness is not totally and infinitely good, then he is really just another being, higher on the food chain than us. Like a space alien or something. In His goodness are the ideals of all that man aspires for and at the same time readily admits he is unable to achieve. If God is good then He is also desirable above any other thing, and desiring anything other than Him would be a travesty of great ignorance. If God is good, then we MUST fall short of deserving Him, so the thing that is most desirable is also something that is not attainable by us, simply because He is God. If He is Good, then He MUST be just, and if He is just then we MUST be required to be worthy of deserving His goodness in order to fullfill our desire for Him. If God is not totally just or not totally good, then he must cease to be God and that which has the justice or goodness he falls short of must take his place as God.

This is why Christ is so important. Since we admit that we are not God, and He is desireable above all things, then we also must admit that any requirement laid upon us to make us worthy of His Goodness would be impossible for us to achieve simply because we are finite and He is infinite, it would never add up. And in His Justice we must demand that He require this of us, or we must abandon that He exists as God at all. We must either deny that He is God and work to ignore, manipulate, or destroy him, or we must accept who He is and realize that we can never be worthy of Him. Only something that could pay an infinite price could redeem a finite being to infinite goodness. Jesus is God, His punishment was able to pay the price of our shortcomings to His infinite goodness. God says that our simple belief in this fact is credited to us as HIS righteousness. So now our greatest desire can be fullfilled, not by our own works of righteousness, but by the righteous work of the very object of our desire, God Himself! Of course He alone could pay this price, because if the price could be paid apart from God, then, you guessed it, He would cease to be God and must submit to the being that could pay the price.

If there is no God who sets a standard for how we should live we all are forced to subject ourselves to the tyranny of the most persuasive or powerful amongst us. The existance of a God who is good is the existance of an objective moral standard. Without an objective standard, morality can only be defined subjectively. What this ultimately means is that the most persuasive group of intellectuals end up setting the moral compass for the masses. Truth, without an objective standard, can only be defined according to our own ability to rationally interpret reality. Since there are groups of individuals who are more able to convince people that they understand the complicated issues of economics, science, ethics, and other subdivisions of truth, those who are intellectually challeged in these areas must look to these groups for guidance. In the absence of a God who reveals truth to the individual, individuals must turn to the elite amongt themselves to find out how to live.

The simple fact is that there is a God, and He is Good. He created us and knows each one of us personally. He is so good that we cannot in any way earn him, however in His goodness he was able to be both just and the justifier of those of us who long to have our desire for Him fullfilled. Because of His work on the cross He is able to forever be with us and councils us, each and individually, daily on how to live so that we could live in this world the way in which He created it to be lived in. We can truly be dependent on no other human, as the source of all wisdom personally teaches us.

There can be no in-between. A god who is lacking in anyway is nothing more than another being in the universe, and he can be manipulated and possibly even destroyed. A god who did not create the world has no authority over it other than by force. And there cannot be a god who is evil, because evil can only be defined in light of good.

We can't say that there is no God and then demand that people live moral lives, nor can we say that there is a God and not come to terms with the desparity between His goodness and our lack of it.

My letter to Senator Coburn regarding the confirmation of David Ogden as deputy attorney general

Honorable Senator Coburn,

Please vote against the confirmation of David Ogden to the position of deputy attorney general. His stance as to how UN treaties affect states rights is a threat to our national sovereignty. Most case law that I have read about has upheld that the intent of the constitution in regards to treaties is limited to trade, however there are many progressive who are pushing for the idea that by adopting treaties they can effect create law that is binding over every state. Putting our country under the thumb of an international court system that we as a people have no control over.

One treaty that Ogden supports is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a direct assault on parental rights. The treaty basically puts the choices a parent would typically make for thier child in the hands of the child or the state, and takes the will of the parents out of the picture. This is immoral, unacceptable, un American, and people in support of such ideas must not be allowed positions of power within our governement.

Sadly, since our country has drifted so far from it's founding, the only real solution is to create a constitutional ammendment providing for the rights of parents. Our forefathers found this unecessary since it was obvious to them, however as a society we have drifted to the absurd and now must meticulously spell out even those rights our founders believed were so apparent they need not even be named.

Please use your power on the judiciary to protect the rights of parents and our national soveriegnty by rejecting Mr Ogden from this post.

Sincerely,

Dax Ewbank

This is why socialism leads to genocide:

"Family planning services reduce cost [for the state]" -Nancy Pelosi.

Since socialists believe it is the role of the state to provide a persons basic needs, when the state's resources are limited the only logical conclusion is to begin limiting the amount of people in order to control costs. In a socialist and planned economy the state is the source of revenue, in a capitalist economy the people are the source of wealth. In a socialist economy with a fiat currency that is using that currency to pay for social welfare programs, when the currency inflation causes price increases the answer has to be to reduce the number of people, not the level of services.

Genesis1:28

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

SOCIALIST VERSION:

And the elite ruling class placated them and said to them "Have only one or two children so we don't fill up the earth, if you become to numerous we will have to kill some of you in order to be able to continue to feed you. Be sure not to infringe upon the fish of the sea or the birds of the heavens or upon any living thing that moves on the earth, as you are subject to the earth and you are to submit to it because it has dominion over you." And they also said "Behold, we have printed up some money and given you a small amount of it, you can use it to purchase food manufactured in factories that use industrialized and engineered crops grown by farms that we also subsidize and regulate with the money we printed. Oh and make sure you don't cut down any trees or make any attempts at forms of agriculture that are outside our regulatory mandates. Remember, food cost money, and it's not like it just grows on trees. If you have some cows don't feed them too much, or you will have to pay a carbon tax because the gasses they emit are harmful to the earth." And the elite saw everything and behold, it was managed and controlled. And there was evening and there was morning, and it was all the same the next day.

Liberia, Hope for the Ideals of Liberty

There are some great things happening in Liberia, and I believe that are our founders principles of liberty at work as God begins to move through the nation. I am volunteering with a group that is working to change the nation of Liberia by bringing the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the message that God demands responsibility for liberty, and the message of love for your neighbors and community. Not only are we bringing a message, but there has grown a network of pastors and churches ready to put those words into action in thier own families and communities. I think God is ready to make a significant change in Liberia and possibly the world!

Here's a video to explain it more:

Many of you know I've been spending some time in Liberia, West Africa working with my church Fresh Start Fellowship and the West African Children's Support Network (WACSN) to try to help cause some positive change in that country. Truthfully we are simply trying to keep up with God as He moves to heal a nation, we want to be there to see it happen! For a small group of people I think we have been a part of some pretty big things up to now, we have delivered a container of food to help feed people, we have purchased a new generator to help power the compound where WACSN keeps it's base of operations, we have purchased a van that WACSN uses to help get people around town as well as provide a source of income for the facility, we're implementing an Internet connectivity plan to help aid communications and opportunities for business ventures, and most importantly we've been dedicated to helping the orphans in Liberia, by ensuring they are being fed and well kept, and by helping with the adoption expenses of some of our friends who have opened their homes and families to Liberian children. Our small church currently has 16 Liberian children as important members of our fellowship.

These are all great things. The people of Liberia need our support, their country is in ruins from years of war. If you think the American economy is bad, a look at the city of Monrovia will have you counting your blessings, they need our help, our money, and our time just to stay alive. However, I truly believe that the answer to the problems in Liberia lies within Liberians. This is why I am very excited about the "How Big Is God?" Crusade that we are planning March 27,28 & 29 at the soccer stadium in Monrovia, Liberia. This event will draw over 50,000 people per night to hear the Gospel, and the good plans God has for their nation if they will turn to Him and love each other.

I know, I know, you're thinking, "Great, ANOTHER big event to make people feel good, and then leave them holding their hats while the Americans fly home to the abundance that is their everyday life." And you'd be justified in thinking that way, we've all seen these kind of events come and go. I'm sure many Africans and Americans for that matter have come to a crusade or event and heard the word of God and maybe they even responded to it, only to go right back to the life they lived before once the crusade packed up and left town. But let me tell you, I think God has different plans for this crusade, I really believe in my heart that he is going to heal the nation of Liberia. It's not going to be through fantastic presentations of the Gospel, or the great music, or even the personal testimonies that will be given on that stage during the nights of the crusade. I think the difference here is that the Liberian Church is mobilized and excited about taking the opportunity of this event to reach out to and love the people in their communities.

When we went to Monrovia in August of 2008 we had the privilege of leading a pastors conference. To our amazement almost 200 pastors showed up for the 3 day event and listened to some no name Americans (Kris Ewbank and Bryan Bishop) tell them about their role as pastors. How they had to flee from the prosperity teaching that is so prevalent in Liberia and cling to the sufficiency of the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ. They talked at length about how the pastors had to reach out and know and love their people, going to their homes, knowing their problems, and encouraging and admonishing them to live a life pleasing to God. The response to this simple message was incredible. At the conference the pastors were very enthused, but it wasn't until after we had come home and received calls from Liberia a couple of weeks later did we hear that the Liberian pastors had organized themselves into a network that has grown to over 1000 pastors representing 800 Churches of every Christian denomination. They are excited about loving their people, and teaching them to love God and their neighbors. They are breaking down denominational barriers in order to pursue a vision of reaching their city for God's Glory and I think this will be the key part to the healing of the nation of Liberia.

The How Big Is God crusade is being completely organized by these pastors, they are meeting together, planning, even going door to door to promote the event. The vision is to come together as a unified church and worship God, and in doing so, connect the people of Monrovia with churches and pastors ready to receive, Love, and encourage them. Basically we will be jump starting a grassroots effort that will reach deep into every community in the largest city in Liberia. The message will be that each and every Liberian is empowered and responsible to change their city, by establishing themselves as Godly households led by men and women in Love with Jesus, by accepting the burden and responsibility of feeding and caring for their own families and their own communities, and by reaching out in love to the people in their communities, not because of their religion or lack of it, but simply because they see them as image bearers of their Creator and desire to love them as Christ who, while we were still sinners, died to save us.

The motto of the country of Liberia is "The Love of Liberty Brought us Here". It was founded by freed American slaves who had a vision to take the ideals of liberty to Africa. Many may believe that that dream was shattered long ago. I tend to think that the principles of liberty are always true and will always work, and to struggle for those principles will always be a worthwhile effort. Looking to America, or the UN, or even their own government to fix Liberia is a time proven exercise in futility. When Liberians look toward the One who gave them their Liberty in the first place and when they willingly take on the burden that God requires for that Liberty, then as God heals their land we will see a nation transformed. And that will be something to see, especially from the front row!

So here's the skinny. It's a known fact that America is inflating it's currency and the value is continuously dropping, However, the fact of the matter is that it still buys stuff. And for this crusade to be a success we need to buy some stuff. Sound equipment, bus rental, printing, advertising, training of staff, all kinds of things. The Liberians are doing great putting the plan together, in fact they have done most of the work and they have also provided the cost estimates for the things we're raising money for. At Fresh Start Fellowship we're all excited about giving because we've caught the vision of what God is doing is Liberia. I hope you have too in a small way. What we're doing is this, you simply buy one or more $10 tickets on ebay to help support the crusade, or you can go to the crusade website to learn more and be a part in other ways.

Even if your not a Christian, I'm sure you can see that what we're doing here is at least worth $10.00. I mean what could be wrong with people coming together in unity and taking personal responsibility to love ALL their neighbors and fix their communities? So dig deep, well not that deep, dig as deep as you would to go see the latest Hollywood mind drain, I'm sure this will be more interesting in the end than anything corporate America could throw at you anyway!

-Dax

http://www.howbigisgod.org/

PS: All donations go toward crusade expenses and to assist ministries in Liberia. Donations go to WACSN, Inc, a 501.3c non-profit and are tax deductible as no goods or services will be rendered to you for the donation. WACSN is also verified by Missionfish.org.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Ready for change? The fed has now pledged an amount of money equal to half the US GDP, that basically means the value of our dollar was just cut by a third. It works like this, the value of our currency is linked to our ability to produce and consume in our economy, last year that number was right at $14 trillion, so if the Fed prints up $7.4 trillion new dollars it means there will be about $21 trillion in currency for an economy of 14 trillion (it's hard to really know this number since the fed stopped reporting on the M3 money supply in 2006).

That would be like if we had 1000 ounces of gold, each with a certificate giving the bearer of that certificate the right to an ounce of gold. Then if we decided to just print up 500 more certificates without the gold to back it for a total of 1500 certificates backed by 1000 ounces of gold. It wouldn't give us more spending power, it would just make each certficate worth less gold, it's really pretty simple division. So get ready for some change, because that is what our government via the Federal Reserve (which is not our government) is doing:

Sounds like change:

Regulators hope the rescue will contain the damage and keep banks providing the credit that is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy.

Most of the spending programs are run out of the New York Fed, whose president, Timothy Geithner, is said to be President- elect Barack Obama's choice to be Treasury Secretary.

The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.

If credit is the 'lifeblood' of our economy (not real money), and it's dried up, that sounds like a problem. The new Treasury Secretary is the guy currently at the federal reserve bank running all the new spending programs. He's in charge of the people who believe the solution to the problem is to find more credit, instead of finding sound money.

After all the hubub about change I guess we will get it afterall, except it will be the change that comes with ignoring basic principles about money that have been with us as humans for thousands of years. This change includes inflation, price increases, loss of liberty, the disintigration of infrastructure... Hopefully we'll come to our senses.