Grace not Works in Old Testament

Sometimes Christians mistakenly think that the Old Testament saint was saved by keeping the law.  This is a destructive mistake, because it makes us separate ourselves from the Old Testament based on a false claim.  I review Psalm 130 to show that grace, not works is the way of salvation in the OT.

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Law and Gospels – part 1

First let’s survey a summary of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20.1-21, Deuteronomy 5.)

–  1  Purity of Devotion: No other gods

–  2  Purity of Worship: No idols

–  3  Sanctity of God’s Name: Not taken in vain

–  4  Sabbath: Remember the “Rest” to keep it holy

–  5  Honor father and mother

–  6  Honor God’s image: Do not murder

–  7  Purity of Marriage: Do not commit adultery

–  8  Sanctity of property: Do not steal

–  9  Sanctity of speech: No lies to harm your neighbor

–10  Guard your heart: Do not covet

SCOPE OF THE LAW

The scope of the Decalogue – the Ten Commandments – is far reaching.  It addresses your

Internal Relation to God                 Internal Relation to neighbor

1                                                    10

External Relation to God                External Relation to neighbor

2, 3, 4                                             5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Interesting to note that #10 Covetousness, leads to #6-8: Murder, Adultery, Theft.

When we look in the next post to the Sermon on the Mount, we will need to key in on the fact that God was ALWAYS concerned with internal heart motivations.  Not just outward actions.  Jesus is making a big deal of this fact.

My Fellow Christians – Consider These Reasons NOT to vote for Obama

I have been hearing many Christians talk about the state of Christianity in this election.  How could Evangelicals (especially) vote for Obama?  Why do Evangelicals (traditionalists) think we all have to be Republicans?

I am the first to say that we shouldn’t judge each other as unfaithful based on these things – we all have complicated reasons for our voting philosophies.

But I do believe it is worth exploring a bit of why I think young Evangelicals are drawn to Obama and the left.

I say this as a former “leftist.”

I think it is a drastic mistake to vote for Obama.

DON’T HEAR WHAT I’M NOT SAYING:  McCain is not the Mascot of Christian conscience – but Obama is a terror to life and liberty!  I have concrete and not merely subjective reasons for saying these things.

Reasons Christians are drawn to the left:
1) Disillusionment with false conservatism.

As we young evangelicals (I’m about 30 years old) grew up in very conservative houses, we put out trust in George Bush.  We reached the age of public/societal disillusionment right as the Bush regime began to reveal its true colors.  We felt (accurately) lied to.  We started watching liberal talk shows just because they would help us see the lies of the Bush administration.  But we left the liberal talk unchecked.

Neo-Conservatism is not conservative, it is not constitutional, it is not good.  It allows for tyranny, fear mongering, and a slow march toward socialism (while pretending to hate the left).

2) Belief that abortion is not actually affected by the Presidential contest.

30 Years of electing Republicans has brought us no relief from Roe.  If nothing ever changes, maybe we should focus on other things, right?  But is this actually true?

3) Belief that social programs reduce the need for abortions.

This is an oft republished lie.  I am sure I almost republished it myself back as a liberal-christian.

4) Belief that social programs are generous.

Poor people need help.  Access to universal health would be kind, right?

5) Desire to escape war in Iraq.

It was an illegal war that we were lied to to get into.  People are dying in Iraq.

6) Fear of our world standing based on Foreign policy.

The world hates the Lying America it has come to know.

Reasons Not to Vote for Obama:
1) He expects to replace several Supreme Court Judges with pro-choice judges.

He is adamant about promoting abortions UP TO BIRTH!!!  You know the kind where they suck a full term baby’s brain out with a vacuum and then crush the skull!

2) He is the most rabidly anti-life candidate we have had.

[Please Click to Read What a Princeton Law Professor said about Obama's abortion record, and stance.]

3]  His foreign policy is just as bad as McCain’s

Shifting troops around in the Middle East just exacerbates things, and it still is invasive political militarism.

4]  Taxing and giving to Government okayed social programs is NOT generous.

It is false generosity to redistribute wealth – you cannot help your neighbor by stealing from your other neighbor.

The government doesn’t have the moral or constitutional right to come up programs that it can’t already pay for, and decide to tax one citizen to give a program to another.  Citizens should be generous, but this is not charity, it is theft.

I mean this sincerely.  The Government does not have constitutional rights to levy the taxes it takes.  I pay mine, because I don’t want to go to jail.  Look up “America: Freedom to Fascism.”  Regardless of whether it seems like a silly video to you, it has good information about the historical problem of the law and taxes.  I don’t advocate avoiding tax payment.  But I do think the government is stealing when they take taxes.  The Supreme Court ruled that income tax was only a tax of investment gains, NOT OF WAGES AND NORMAL INCOME.

McCain Opposes Himself?

Take these facts into consideration and then read my question at the bottom; it concerns John McCain being willing to hold two drastically opposing positions professed on the same day, and accusing Obama of close to treason for holding one of the two same opinions as he himself puts forth. Am I wrong about this?

HERE ARE THE PRELIMINARY FACTS

*At least by the end of April, Gallup said that 63% of Americans saw the Iraq war as a mistake.

*70% of Americans want us out of Iraq (says Ron Paul at Antiwar.com)…

*70% of Iraqis want us gone, IRAQ CAN DEFEND ITSELF (Iraqi officials TELL CONGRESS, see CSPAN)

*Even if the surge has brought violence down, by last September, as many as 70% of Iraqis said that security had deteriorated in our “Surge” areas.

*The Administration of Iraq (P.M. Nouri al-Maliki) has demanded that we leave by 2010 – and are happy with Barack Obama’s timetable (See MSNBC video), remember!- John McCain said that if they asked us to leave, we would have to go (a blog distillation of the CFR original).

Copying Democracy Arsenal:

Question: “What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there?”

McCain’s Answer: “Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.”

Furthermore, our only legal basis for staying is the UN mandate which expires on December 31, 2008, after which we would have the DEMOCRATIC responsibility of allowing Iraq to be sovereign…

IN FACT, even the Bush Administration has now made it seem that they will #1) indeed begin withdrawal and #2) move our troops to Afghanistan (like Barack Obama said).

SOOOOO – EVERYONE IS ON THE SAME PAGE… WE ARE LEAVING, WE LEGALLY HAVE TO LEAVE, WE ETHICALLY HAVE TO LEAVE, THE AMERICANS WANT OUT, THE IRAQIS WANT US OUT…..

….but….

John McCain says, “I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign. [FOX, A good Countdown Vid]“

What does he think losing is? Coming home?… What does he think he will or can do as president? He blames Obama’s plan for potentially “Losing the WAR”….RIGHT AFTER SAYING HE WILL COME HOME SOOOOOONER than Obama. It sounds like he just blamed these people for wanting us gone: 1) America, 2) the Iraqi People, 3) the Iraqi government, 4) the United Nations, 5) the Bush Administration.

But that was only after saying that HE TOO would do the same thing. What? Yes. What he said, actually makes NO sense, it only has the APPEARANCE of making John McCain a better Commander, even though he is actually saying he opposes his own plan, the one he is being FORCED to take, which will finally force him to do what America and Iraq want…to the chagrin of the Military Industrial Complex.

[Watch the video - same Countdown Video].
REMEMBER – there is no defined way of saying WHAT this war actually is. Iraq already HAS a democratic government now. We apparently don’t care about LAW or Constitution, or decency. We just care about securing the rights to more oil.