let the broken promises begin! a glimpse at the next four years...

please look at the below link and watch the video:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/28/campbell.brown.obama/index.html

we couldn't even wait until after the election to find out that what our candidates have been telling us all along isn't, in fact, what they are really going to do. yesterday it was the definition of who is rich (pay attention. it has gone from $250,000 down to $150,000). today it is this.

i love the justifying responses below this video. it simply amazes me how we allow ourselves be deceived. i will hand it to obama, though. he has figured out that the media, with a few exceptions, is on his side, and he has been playing them. for instance, how is it that he has convinced the american people that mccain is the one running all the negative ads when it is he that has far more negative ads? even after criticizing mccain for this in the previous debate, he immediately took clips from the debate and made negative ads with them. unbelievable. i have become annoyed at you, barak, for all your whining. is this how you are going to run our country? by whining that people aren't playing nice every time things get tough? i hardly think that the leaders of countries like iran, north korea, and venezuela are going to be sympathetic. further, i find it hard to classify something as negative when it is true. perhaps mccain did run more negative ads in previous months, but perhaps he had more information to use for negative ads. yet, i heard a guy on the news last night say that he wasn't voting for mccain because of his use of negative ads. there might be plenty of reasons not to vote for mccain, but this is not one of them.

i guess when we really want something we are blinded to the truth. that, my friends, is the downside of hope... it has to be placed on something in trust and when it is placed in the wrong thing it is no hope at all.

cheers,
jw <><

stop buying oil!

my friends, we have a serious problem. our lifestyle is making the entire world unsafe. while we have been living ignorantly, consuming large quantities of gasoline to power our play toys and making everything with oil, from plastics to the materials used to pave roads, we have been unknowingly helping leaders of rogue countries gain money and power. money and power they are using against us. they have gotten us addicted to this drug they are selling - a drug which we almost entirely rely on them to give us and which we have been so intoxicated by that we have failed to see what is going on. even now that we do see, we cannot break our addiction.

why do i say all of this? because opec announced today that they are going to cut production of oil in order to skyrocket prices because oil prices have gotten too low (just when prices were starting to fall at the pumps). this is bad news for the global economy, which they clearly have little regard for as they know people will always need oil. what are they doing with the windfall profits they are making? well, besides living extravagant lives, they are building nuclear weapons and purchasing weapons from other countries. by buying their oil, we are literally fueling their hatred and greed against us.

all the while, we are getting weaker with a crumbling economy (mostly because of our desire for things), and we have almost literally handed over our fate to militant dictators who hate this country. all the while, they are getting richer and more powerful. they have found our vulnerability (the missing scale in the dragon's armor if you will), and they are exploiting it. this has to end. and, mark my words, it is not going to be pretty.

with this said, please be very careful who you vote for in two weeks. we need a secure nation. even more, we need energy dependence... now! actually, we needed it yesterday.

please see this article and prepared to be very disturbed: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,442343,00.html

goodnight and good luck,
jw <><

the change america is looking for... socialism?

below is an interesting statement from senator obama that was in response to a question from a plumber in ohio. i thought all of you would be interested in seeing it.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed "more and more for fulfilling the American dream."

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

here is the link for the full article: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/13/obama-plumber-plan-spread-wealth/comments/

jw <><

grace alone...

When St. Paul taught the doctrine of justification by Grace alone he was opposed by those who thought he was encouraging moral irresponsibility, and in fact undermining the law, but Paul insisted that on the contrary he was establishing the law. Similarly when Luther reasserted the same doctrine at the Reformation he was met with the charge of fostering antinomianism, but he showed that the contrary was the case, for out of justification flowed the life ruled by the law of love, and that far from subverting moral responsibility justification by Grace alone established it upon a profound and unshakeable foundation.

Theological Science, T.F. Torrance

Perhaps we should try to get our heads around this radical truth that is the Good News that our salvation is not conditional on our actions but that our actions consequentially follow God's saving action! After all, what is grace if we have to earn it? When we realize that we are saved despite ourselves, then we are freed to live in joy and love. We no longer have to serve God out of a feeling of obligation or duty, living in constant fear of whether we are doing enough, but we develop an unceasing desire to serve God in response to His great mercy, being empowered by the Holy Spirit to act. My friends, I pray that you would begin to grasp the enormity of how high and wide and deep the love of God is for us in and through Jesus Christ!

cheers,
jw <><

the Word...

We only know persons whose words are in addition to what they are and whose words in themselves are impersonal acts separate and distinct from their persons. With God this is not so. His Word is His Person in communication, for in His speaking He Himself is personally present communicating Himself. That is in the Word of God who became flesh in Jesus Christ in whose self-communication God communicates Himself in Person and confronts us with His Person as Word.

Theological Science, T.F. Torrance

crucifixion...

In Jesus Christ the Truth of God has broken into our human life and history in such a way as to involve crucifixion on His part as He endures the contradiction of sinners against Himself, and 'crucifixion' on our part as we take up the Cross and follow Him in an act of obedience in which we repent of our untruth and are changed in adaptation to the Truth of God.

Theological Science, T.F. Torrance

silence...

There is always a point before the face of the Truth of God as it is in Jesus where we break off speaking and are silent in order that God may declare Himself to us and the Truth be His own witness.

Theological Science, T.F. Torrance

some nuggets to chew on...

Where our statements have to do with the ultimate Truth of God true verification must be through appeal to the judgment of God Himself. It is to be sought in a way that guards the true Majesty of God and preserves the true limits of the creature and so does not allow the creature to exalt himself above God, and thus to falsify himself or to turn the truth of God into a lie. We cannot anticipate or arrogate to ourselves the decision as to the truth but can only cast ourselves upon God, offering ourselves with our statements for His criticism and correction, for His approval or disapproval, and praying that through His judgement they may receive justification and truth.
In this submission to the judgement and Grace of God we rely upon the Incarnation, upon the condescension of the Truth to enter within our weakness in order to make Himself accessible and communicable to us (i.e. upon its own objective effectuality), and by the Grace of His revelation and reconciliation to be the object of our knowledge in spite of the limitations and inadequacy and poverty of our words and thoughts, for far from allowing His power to be limited or halted by them, He sanctifies and elevates them in His assumption of our humanity, and gives them a content in His Truth which they are utterly unable in themselves to hold or possess. Thus in Jesus Christ God has not only revealed Himself, objectified Himself, given Himself to be known but has actualized understanding and knowledge and speech of Himself within our humanity and its creaturely forms. It is that Truth spoken and heard, given and received, communicated and understood, and therefore spoken and given and communicated again within the idiom of our existence in space and time, that comes to us and claims from us understanding and thought and speech. Therefore as we hear and receive and understand the Truth of God and think it out and communicate it again in statements, we cast ourselves upon the reliability of God behind it all, by resting as Augustine used to say, upon the same Grace by with the Truth became incarnate, praying that our words and statements which we seek to utter in faithful conformity to the Truth of God as it is in Jesus may by Grace be given actual content in the Truth to which they humbly and obediently claim to refer. And we believe that according to His promise and in accordance with the judgements of His Grace, He will adopt them and give them their Truth in Himself, as it pleases Him.

Theological Science, T.F. Torrance