Tag Evil

No Rest for the Wicked

Allen Frederick 1 Comment

But the wicked are like the troubled sea, for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. Isaiah 57:20-21 (AMP)
“I am a person who loves death. . . . I would like to be killed by the bullet.” This was the boast of Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and numerous others. His perverted wish was granted when his life recently ended with bullets to the head and chest.

Osama bin Laden is just the latest in the long list of evil persons who met with a violent end. Osama knew that his life was threatened everyday. One look at his fortified homestead gives us a glimpse into the fear this man lived with daily. Reports indicate he never went outside and rarely had visitors, there was no telephone or internet connections. Osama’s compound was surrounded by concrete security walls topped with barbed wire. He obviously felt the need to hide. What a way to live life -holed up in a walled bunker.

For someone who talked big, and acted so tough in videos and audio tapes he died a coward. Among the items American forces pulled out of the terrorist leader’s compound last week are videos of Bin Laden, wrapped in a blanket, watching himself on television. ABCNews reports, the warlord is seen to be “a vain pathetic old man.”  And what Osama wanted to see was not just himself, but a younger, improved version of himself. American forces confirm that Bin Laden was dying his beard, to manage his image in attempts to appear more vibrant to his supporters around the world.

The nature of evil, ultimately, is narcissism. And the end result of narcissism is always evil. Sometimes that evil shows up in preening and boasting. Other times it shows up in the ease with which one takes offense. Sometimes that offense even morphs into a crusade or a jihad, around the world.

Essayist David Brooks has noted that for the narcissist the self-image is “the holy center of all that is sacred and right.” “If someone treats him slightingly, he perceives that as a deliberate and heinous attack,” Brooks writes. “If someone threatens his reputation, he regards this as an act of blasphemy.”

Because of this narcissism America is supposed to walk around on egg shells in order to not provoke a jihad by offending the fragile sensibilities of Muslims. Apparently these tough jihadists have very thin skin because everything seems to offend them. Cartoons, books, newspaper articles, satirical works, art, music, well just about anything. If someone disagrees with them they threaten to blow something up. Well there is one less offense in the world Osama has been laid to rest at the bottom of the sea.

God does not take any delight in the death of the wicked but prefers a person accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior thereby making them a new creature, but to a narcissist there is no god but himself. A narcissist see’s themselves as god of all. They feel their viewpoint is the only one that matters as Brooks pointed out in his work. This puts the narcissist in conflict with God and all that is holy and right. Therefore by their own positioning they have made themselves enemies of God. Osama bin Laden lived and died by the sword, the sword of his own making, the sword of offense that he himself forged in his own hatred for God and God’s people.

A better end to this sorry story would have been if Osama would have had an encounter with Jesus and repented of all his evil ways and went about making restitution for all the evil he had wrought. But that was not to be and he now lies amongst the dead awaiting his final judgment before the very God he despised while living. Do not rejoice in the death of this wicked man but rather reflect because his sins are no greater than yours or mine. Unless we repent and accept Jesus Christ as our righteousness we too shall face the same end as Osama bin Laden because the wages of sin is death. It may not come at the hands of the Navy SEALs but death and God’s judgment are ours none-the-less.

It is far better to walk about humbly and reverently in fear of God then to think all is well and you have no need of a savior.

And that is this week’s tail feather. Think about it! What say you?

But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness. Isaiah 40:31 Open Link in New Window (BBE)


Along for the journey

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The Greater and the Lessor Light

Allen Frederick 1 Comment

Christian wallpaper Genesis 1:16
Both lights are needful. Light and dark must exist to distinguish between day and night. Many like to follow after the lessor, let us however strive to follower after the greater. 

This is why people are condemned: The light came into the world. Yet, people loved the dark rather than the light because their actions were evil. People who do what is wrong hate the light and don’t come to the light. They don’t want their actions to be exposed. But people who do what is true come to the light so that the things they do for God may be clearly seen. John 3:19-21 (GW)

 

 

 

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Pouring Salt in Our Wounds

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Matt 5:13 (NKJV)

This past week tragedy struck outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson Arizona killing 6 and wounding 13. A lone gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, with a long history of disturbing behavior opened fire on a political rally hosted by

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who police said was the gunman’s first target. Much has been written about the motives and causation of this tragic event. Many were quick to cite Sarah Palin and conservative talk-show hosts as the catalyst that ignited Jared’s shooting spree. Although no link could be found to ‘conservative ideology’ that did not stop the commentators from continuing the story line. The media was incessant in their attempts to give Jared an out, a reason for his heinous act. They desperately wanted to find a link between Jared and Sarah Palin, yet none could be found. Could it be that the heart of Jared was simply wicked? Was there anyone to blame other than Jared? Were their cries for help? I believe there were many but our “politically correct” society prevented Jared from getting the help he most desperately needed. A change of heart.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? Jer 17:9 (NKJV)

In an article published at crosswalk.com Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan wrote in his commentary about this incident:

“The human heart is desperately sinful and capable of despicable sins. Of course, no one commends the crime, but few are willing to condemn the criminal either. In such a world we are no longer moral beings with the propensity for great acts of righteousness and great acts of evil. We are instead, at least when we are bad, the mere product of our circumstances, our society, our upbringing, our biochemistry, or our hurts. The triumph of the therapeutic is nearly complete.”

 

In his book The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost Their Sense of Evil by Andrew Delbanco. we read

A gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it. Never before have images of horror been so widely disseminated and so appalling-from organized death camps to children starving in famines that might have been averted. Rarely does a week go by without newspaper and television accounts of teenagers performing contract killings for a few dollars, women murdered on the street for their purses or their furs, young men shot in the head for the keys to their jeep-and these are only the domestic bulletins…

The repertoire of evil has never been richer. Yet never have our responses been so weak. We have no language for connecting our inner lives with the horrors that pass before our eyes in the outer world…

In our disenchanted world, one respected historian has recently remarked (and here he is perfectly representative) that mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin require us “judiciously [to] distinguish mental disorders that incapacitate from streaks of disorder that should not diminish responsibility.” This distinction would be meaningless to the scores of millions who died at their hands. What does it mean to say that the inventor of the concentration camps, or of the Gulag, was subject to a “disorder?” What does it mean to call these monsters mentally disordered, and to engage in scholastic debate over whether their brand of madness vitiates their responsibility? Why can we no longer call them evil? (3-4).

Kevin continues his commentary with these words:

“The world, and to a large extent the church, has lost the ability to speak in moral categories. We have preferences instead of character. We have values instead of virtue. We have no God of holiness, and we have no Satan. We have break-downs, crack-ups, psychoses,maladjustments, and inner turmoil. But we do not have repugnant evil as the Bible has it. And this loss makes the world a more dangerous place.”

With all the commentaries written this past week about the Tucsan shooter, the silence from the church was deafening. In one report a Catholic Bishop was quoted as saying:

“I wish I knew the answer. “But as the world continues to seek an answer to that question, we can, each in our own way, strive to respect others, speak with civility, try to understand one another and to find healthy ways to resolve our conflicts.”

Face it my friends, there is evil in the world because there is a real devil. The bible says Satan roams around seeking souls to devour and to spread death and destruction, to the individual as well as society (1 Peter 5:8). God loves; and Satan hates everything God loves.

In our politically correct society sin is no longer permitted to be called sin, evil must be explained away, and the secularist religion requires the removal of all judgments of any kind. The secularist sees the world as evolving and men as gods, while the Christian sees the world as fallen and in desperate need of a savior.

Where has the salt gone? Is there anyone left to stand in the gap? If not us then who is going to speak the truth? Who is left to “pour salt in the wounds” of society?

In our quest to get along we have been silenced by the thought police and our vocabulary has been corrupted by the PC society in which we live. We are no longer acting as the preserving agents. I am afraid we have lost our saltiness and therefore been reduced to worthlessness in a hurting dying world. Pouring salt in wounds stings a bit but it promotes faster healing.

Where does one go to find the saltiness needed to preserve moral order if the church has lost it? What hope does the world have if the preservative loses its power to preserve? Think about it!

eagle_feather_icon.gifAnd that is this week’s tail feather

But those who are waiting for the Lord will have new strength; they will get wings like eagles: running, they will not be tired, and walking, they will have no weariness. Isaiah 40:31Open Link in New Window (BBE)

Along for the journey

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The World Needs a Few Good Men

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

* who cannot be bought;
* whose word is their bond;
* who put character above wealth;
* who possess opinions and a will;
* who are larger than their vocations;
* who do not hesitate to take chances;
* who will not lose their individuality in a crowd;
* who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
* who will make no compromise with wrong;
* whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
* who will not say they do it” because everybody else does it”;
* who are true to their friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as well as in prosperity;
* who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning, and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success;
* who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
* who can say “no” with emphasis, although all the rest of the world says “yes.”

Charles Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, pp.107-8

God’s Kind of Love

Allen Frederick Leave a comment

 

 

Sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean in Hollywood

Image via Wikipedia

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”
Look what happens
with a love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky. –Hafiz

 

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“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you this: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. 45 In this way you show that you are children of your Father in heaven. He makes his sun rise on people whether they are good or evil. He lets rain fall on them whether they are just or unjust. Matt 5:43-45 (GW)


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