The Supreme Court Has the Final Say

October 7, 2014October 7, 2014Allen Frederick Leave a comment

“At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous… In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, 1823

I think old Tom was on to something way back in the OLD DAYS!

English: The Supreme Court of the United States. Washington, D.C. Français : La Cour suprême des États-Unis. Washington D.C., États-Unis. ‪Norsk (bokmål)â¬: Høyesterett i USA. Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With all the power the Supremes’ have amassed for themselves it seems that they have set themselves up as the authority on all things about life and happiness. I think I read somewhere that man was created with certain inalienable rights among them was the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Unless the Supremes’ have a differing opinion about what is considered your personal LIBERTY and happiness. I would think that part of being happy is having a STABLE society with agreeable societal norms established by society. Besides the government is supposed to represent the wishes of the people who empowered them in the first place not legislate away all their ideas and freedoms.

Lately the Supreme court has decided to not bother to hear any cases of SAME-SEX marriage, which means SAME-SEX marriage is now the DEFAULT law of the land even though WE THE PEOPLE have said no many times. So now that same-sex marriage is the law of the land that means families are no longer made up of a mother and a father who have biological children, the family will now be open to court discretion and legal construct since we took out the NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS and relegated Nature’s GOD and subjected HIM to the rules of man.

And this is going to help build up society how? Seems to me that the courts have finally put the last nail in the coffin of civil society by disrupting the NATURAL order of things and replaced it with COURT ORDERS. THUS SAYS THE SUPREME COURT!

Well the holy handbook of Juris Prudence states things differently. Jesus said He was the last authority when he spoke these words:

Revelation 1:8 (AMP)
8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord God, He Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty (the Ruler of all).

So the real SUPREME ruler of all things gets the last word, the one clothed in a WHITE ROBE will be the final judge on things of life; not mortals dressed in black robes.

And that is the way I see it! What say you?

Fruit Inspectors, Log Detectors, or Foolish Advisors? You be the Judge!

September 1, 2014October 25, 2014Allen Frederick Leave a comment

Isaiah 59:14-15 “And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth has fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment.”

I am afraid that we have lost our way in America. For too long we have been fed this anti-biblical principle that no one is allowed to judge anyone for anything, and we are all just supposed to love one another no matter how the other person behaves or what the other person believes even if those beliefs are contrary to our own. We are being told over and over that tolerance is the way forward, and we all need to be accepting of others.

The only problem with this is those who are calling for others to not judge set themselves up as the arbiters and judges of all that is judgmental. In other words they judge others while exempting themselves from the same judgment they are meting out.

In fact, in today’s modern culture, “judge not” carries more weight than another of Christ’s one-liners, ”Go and sin no more.” This is a situation where a little Bible knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

JUDGE NOT and THOU SHALL NOT are not stand alone statements.

It is important to take scripture in context to get the full meaning of what Jesus or any of the other biblical writers are trying to say. Taken in context then we have our judge not comment below.

Mathew 7:1-5 “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

You see, Jesus commanded us to not judge hypocritically, He never commanded us not to judge. He asked us to remove the logs so we could “see clearly” to help our brother. How are we to remove a log if we feel that we do not have a log? And how is it that we learn about having a log in the first place? If everyone around us keeps telling us the way we see things is right and good, then we will continue down a path that we think is right only to find that path led us right to our own demise. What was the problem? How did we get here? Why did God allow me to go down this road? My friend it was because you had believed the lie that you should not be judged in anything you said or did or thought. You were blinded by a huge log that you refused to allow anyone to point out to you.

So then how do we learn about our logs or specks for that matter? We learn from others who have already removed the logs from their eyes, or better had the logs removed for them by the Lord through spiritual encounters.

I Corinthians 2:15 “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.”

We are instructed to judge all things….things…not people. Actions, thoughts and words are things. Choices are things, what people do are things. You should judge decisions and actions of others to decide if those actions are good or bad. Yes my friends some things are bad for you. Heck if we follow the teaching of these blinded fools and not judge anything then we will not be long for this life since we will be eating poisoned fruit. Who is it among us who will stand and say that they do not judge what they eat? No one would intentionally ingest poison, and yet many, for lack of judgment, are ingesting a deadly poison, that of a failed worldview. Their visions are clouded by huge logs. Just like a good chef knows how to pick good fruits and vegetables to cook with, and seeks out only the freshest and finest ingredients, shouldn’t we do the same when it comes to things that pertain to this life?

Yes we are and yes we should!

I Corinthians 6:2-4 “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.”

“….How much more the things that pertain to this life.”

Only a fool would willing eat poison, or follow a path that led off a cliff, and using sound judgment is the key to avoiding such deadly consequences. The problem with sin though is its subtlety. It is not labeled poisonous and there are no DANGER signs posted on the pathway of destruction. In fact sin is very enticing, it has an intoxicating appeal. It is addictive. Like the siren’s of Homer’s Odyssey sin’s haunting allure leads all to their destruction.

We all have specks in our eyes and our visions are cloudy, some even have forest growing in their eyes, therefore all of us need some guidance and direction when it comes to matters that pertain to life. It is where we go to get that instruction which could be a matter of life and death. Paul admonished the Corinthian church to set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. In other words listen to those who you might not otherwise esteem as notable. Many times God speaks through those we least expect and in ways that challenge our intellects.

How then can one know what is good and what is bad? Discernment is the short answer, but learning from others is probably the better answer. Allow others to look for logs and specks. Allow your fruit to be inspected by a certified fruit inspector.

Matthew 7:15-18 “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.”

Jesus clearly delineates between good and bad, and exhorts us to do the same. That requires judgment.

Do not think too highly of yourself that you feel you are above reproach in all areas of life. Pride will surely lead you down the road of self-destruction because you will not heed the warnings of others, or listen to the rebukes of those who have gone down the same path before you. You will simply cry out in a loud voice…WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE while you are speeding along the pathway of destruction.

A Violent Purge

August 23, 2014August 22, 2014Allen Frederick

1 John 4:3 (AMP)
³ And every spirit which does not acknowledge and confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh [but would annul, destroy, sever, disunite Him] is not of God [does not proceed from Him]. This [nonconfession] is the [spirit] of the antichrist, [of] which you heard that it was coming, and now it is already in the world.

persecuted The recent violence in Gaza has drawn attention away from the continuing extreme actions by ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Having conquered much of northern Iraq, ISIS is busy persecuting Chaldean Christians in the area. The city of Mosul, for example, has been purged of Christians, perhaps numbering 100,000. As one commentator observed, “Our worst nightmare is confirmed. Christianity in Mosul is dead, and a Christian holocaust is in our midst.” The goal of the radicals is to create an Islamic state with no room for dissenters. Christians are being forced to convert to Islam, face death, pay a fine or leave.

What many do not know is that Islam was the driving force behind the original Jewish Holocaust that brought about WWII. Hitler was urged to purge the Jews by Islamic leaders of the day. Nazism and Islamic extremism are blood brothers.

The battle in Israel is the same battle being waged around the world. China removes crosses from churches, Obama covers-up crosses when he gives a speech at a religious building. The ACLU and Freedom from Religion organizations are suing cities and towns across the country to remove roadside crosses. Recently there was a lawsuit to keep the ground zero cross out of the ground zero museum, where the court recently ruled that the cross could be included and indeed should be.

Since the time of Eden Satan has waged a war against God and anything that resembles God on earth, thus this purging of Christians and Christian symbolism along with the constant attack on the Jewish people, are all symptoms of the same spirit, the spirit of the Antichrist.

Robin Williams and the Fraility of the Human Condition

August 18, 2014Allen Frederick Leave a comment

Psalm 69:1-3 (HCSB)
¹Save me, God, for the water has risen to my neck. ² I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing; I have come into deep waters, and a flood sweeps over me.

Robin-Williams (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last Monday night, the tragic announcement of actor and comedian Robin Williams’ death, apparently by suicide, shocked many of us. It was known that he struggled with severe depression, but for many of us the only encounters we have had with Robin Williams was via his portrayal of a character we have grown to love; Aladdin’s Genie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Peter Pan, or in his more serious roles as Patch Adams, or English teacher John Keating in “Dead Poets Society“, and psychologist Sean Maquire in “Goodwill Hunting“. For most of us this is the only thing we know about Robin Williams. We were not made aware of all his private struggles only those which became public knowledge. We were not invited into his everyday life and permitted only a glimpse into who Robin Williams was a a whole man.

For most of us, celebrities like Robin Williams are one-dimensional people, summed up by the quality they’re best known for such as Williams’ zany humor. It can be hard to understand that a man who made so many others laugh could struggle with the disease of depression. But the truth is that no one is a one-dimensional person. We all have areas of beauty and of darkness in our life. The strongest of us have weaknesses, the “weakest” of us have strengths; the happiest of us can be sad, the saddest can be happy, the healthiest, sick, and the sick, healthy. All of us, if we care to admit it, have areas of darkness we hide away from public view. Many of us put on a happy face to the world even though we might be struggling with our own internal demons. When we come to the place where all hope is lost, and we can not see the light at the end of the tunnel, where do we find hope for our hopelessness? Ironically one of the treatments for depression is laughter.

Life can throw us some pretty tough curve-balls, and heap upon us some really hard challenges, if all we have to rely on is our own intestinal fortitude we can quickly become spent and exhausted from fighting life’s bitter battles. Some may seek relief through escapism, running away from the problems of life. Some may chose to mask the pain through medication or alcohol abuse. Others knowing they are weak in themselves will seek out the help and advice of others, whether they are friends, relatives or professionals. Still others may simply try to ignore the problem hoping that by denying a problem exists it will somehow disappear. When the burdens get so bad, and there seems to be no end to the suffering, whether real or imagined, some look for a way for the bitterness to end. For some this end comes about by their own hand. This is tragic on many levels, and leaves behind a great deal of hurt and pain, along with questions and doubts by survivors who wondered what more they could have done to reach out and help the troubled soul.

Except for the grace of God I too could find myself facing the same demons Robin Williams faced last Monday when he finally had had enough of the pain and hopelessness he was feeling. He may have even cried out to God for help and thought that God was so far removed that he either didn’t care or would not answer. Let me assure you friends that God really does care about every detail of your life. He cared enough to even sacrifice the life of his own son in order to remove the barrier that existed between us and God because of our sinful life choices. He is reaching out a hand of help and comfort to anyone who is willing to grab hold of it and trust God to lift them up out of the miry clay and the pit of despair and set their feet upon a solid rock of hope. (Psalms 40:2).

There is no problem we face that God has not made a way for us to deal with it and to overcome it. He promises to keep us and be with us through every circumstances of life. The problem is we often do not seek God before a calamity besets us, so when we find ourselves in the midst of the crisis we are so far removed from God’s comfort we can not sense his presence when it is needed the most. God’s desire is to not see anyone perish but that all would find salvation and abundant life through his son Jesus. I beg you therefore to seek a relationship with the giver of life before you come to a place where you are seeking to take your own life. It is not too late to find that peace that passes all understanding. You too can find hope when you feel hopeless, comfort when you are comfortless, and joy when you are sorrowful.

No matter what problems you are dealing with, we want to help you find a reason to keep living. By calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255) you’ll be connected to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area, anytime 24/7. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Hall of Famers

July 29, 2014July 28, 2014Allen Frederick Leave a comment

Hebrews 11:1-2 (NKJV)
¹ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ² For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
³³ who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
³⁴ quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
³⁵ Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
³⁶ Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
³⁷ They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented–
³⁸ of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
³⁹ And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise,
⁴⁰ God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

English: National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Scan of the original photograph. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Frank Thomas choked back tears, Joe Torre apologized for leaving people out of his speech and Tony La Russa said he felt uneasy.

Being enshrined in the Hall of Fame can have those effects, even on the greats.

Thomas, pitchers Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux, and managers Bobby Cox, Torre and La Russa were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York Sunday, and all paid special tribute to their families before an adoring crowd of nearly 50,000.

“I’m speechless. Thanks for having me in your club,” Thomas said, getting emotional as he remembered his late father. “Frank Sr., I know you’re watching. Without you, I know 100 per cent I wouldn’t be here in Cooperstown today. You always preached to me, ‘You can be someone special if you really work at it.’ I took that to heart, Pop.”

Ever the diplomat as a manager, Torre somehow managed to assuage the most demanding of owners in George Steinbrenner, maintaining his coolness amid all the Bronx craziness while keeping all those egos in check after taking over in 1996. The result: 10 division titles, six AL pennants and four World Series triumphs in 12 years as he helped restore the luster to baseball’s most successful franchise and resurrected his own career after three firings.

“Baseball is a game of life. It’s not perfect, but it feels like it is,” said the 74-year-old Torre, who apologized afterward for forgetting to include the Steinbrenner family in his speech. “That’s the magic of it. We are responsible for giving it the respect it deserves. Our sport is part of the American soul, and it’s ours to borrow — just for a while.”

“If all of us who love baseball and are doing our jobs, then those who get the game from us will be as proud to be a part of it as we were. And we are. This game is a gift, and I am humbled, very humbled, to accept its greatest honor.”

It is a wonderful feeling to be honored for your life’s work, or in this case play since baseball is after all a game. Nonetheless baseball is as American as apple pie so the saying goes. Joe Torre in his acceptance speech expressed a deep appreciation for the game and humbly accepted the honor of being included among the elites of the game.

Being accepted into the Baseball Hall of Fame is an honor reserved for very few of the many who have played the game before. Those who are honored in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown have shown and above average talent for the game. They have demonstrated spectacular performance on the ball field and from this day forward shall be enshrined forever among the greats of the game.

As Joe Torre expressed in his remarks it gave him a sense of pride to pass on the game to the next generation and give them encouragement and a love of the game. He took his honor to heart.

Being an example for others, and offering encouragement for those who come to the game after us is certainly something that should be remembered and having a Hall of Fame to honor these great men is certainly right.

In our Christian walk we too have a record of the Hall of Famer’s found in Hebrews chapter 11. These are those who although they had obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, because God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. The list is long of all those who are listed in God’s great Hall of Fame including David, Moses, Samson, Elijah, Joshua, Rahab, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau. And let us not forget Joseph, Noah and Abel. The list is too long to include everyone here but you can visit God’s Hall of Fame found in the pages of scripture.

In order to walk among baseball’s finest you must take a trip to Cooperstown and visit the Hall of Fame, but to walk among the biblical elite on God’s Wall of fame you simply have to turn to scripture.

Like Joe Torre emoted, these men, who have played the game already, have left a legacy for others to follow. They have set an example of what can be accomplished when you are fully dedicated to the game of baseball. So too have the heroes of our faith set forth an example for others to follow. Let us follow their examples and get in the game, perhaps we too will one day find ourselves in the hall of fame.

Hebrews 12:1 (NKJV)

¹Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,