Stand With Those Who Have Suffered Over 80 Years Of Genocidal Attack

This is a time of rage and devastating loss for the citizens of Israel–Yvrit, Christian, Druze, and Shiite alike. All reasoning people stand empathetic to the pain suffered by people who have all faced pogrom and genocidal hatred since the middle of the 20th century for no other reason than that they hold a particular religion that differs from the majority of those who surround them. Such is the base depravity of our times that those who have publicly declared themselves in support of exterminating the state, religions, and the ethnicity of the Israeli people are seen as equivalently or more greatly persecuted by Israel when she seeks to protect her own through non-lethal means. When she is forced by exigent circumstance to engage in the military or police activities practiced by every sovereign nation on the planet in defense of its people, she is declared a rogue state and persecuted further.

This week Hamas and Fatah have shown themselves to be as criminally committed to genocide as they were in May of 1965. The systematic extermination of private citizens and their children while they were growing corn and living the simple life of the kibbutz, is in parity with Adolf Hitler’s NaZis, not IDF and Israeli Border Security or National Police. No amount of fallacy or hyperbole will cause this false equivalency to stand any reasonable test of truth. Yet the western Media and humor outlets have used sarcasm and mockery to make that very case. This is the basest of depraved indifference and is indecent.

Moreover, no group that engages in forced conversion, torture, rape can legitimately claim to be connected to the God of creation or engaged in warfare. I say this mindful of world history and the origin of modern nations and states. Hamas’ actions and Fatah’s complicity are not justified by the past, and the state and people of Israel must do those things mandated by the ultimate form of diplomacy, the prosecution of a just and necessary war.

But the citizens and their families will draw no comfort from war. It will not bring one beheaded baby or forced convert back to families in health and peace. Join me in praying for my namesake, for Shalom, for Peace in Jerusalem and through the Land of Promise. Pray with me for the comfort and solace of the survivors in Israel and in Gaza. If you aren’t a person of Faith, at least do the human thing and show compassion to the grieving. Quit politicizing, and drawing SEO, and snark points by persecuting them in this terrible moment.

Which Thou Sowest

From Inglewood to South Central, Fred K C Price carved a path of Biblical practice compassion that Jesus called “True Religion.”  On Friday, February 12th, 2021, Fred succumbed to illness due to Corona Virus 2019 infection. At 89 he was still practicing the role of pastor, teacher, and overseer for a burgeoning denomination centered on Biblical obedience and personal growth. He will be missed.

Not withstanding and even because of the humble submission to authority evidenced in events surrounding his son Fred Jr. in 2017–the ministry remains a bastion of Bible centered Faith an Practice. While only God can see the future, and every act of freewill steers the course of life and ministry, the Legacy of Crenshaw Chrisitian Center remains in good hands and a jewel in the crown of the late Fred Senior.

We extend our love and prayerful support to the family and to Fred Jr in particular. As a wise man once said, “Black lives do matter…[you] have one.” Cherish it and remember it rests in the hands of a loving God with the will and power to carry you through. Stay the course because, you are loved.

And as believers we remain confident that we have not seen the last of Fred K C Price, but will meet him in the air at the muster of the saints.

Rules of Engagement

I know that I have visited this topic previously and it may seem that there is little more to be said, however the larger issue is the fact that a particular body of anti-Christian heresy continues to pervert and beleaguer the church and one of the most profound results is the instability of the Christian home and family. I refer of course to the teaching that God has changed with the times and sin is no longer sin. But, more specifically, I refer to the casual even positive way in which divorce is now viewed among those who consider themselves believers. Why this matters has been covered partly in previous musings where I point to the Jesus midrash where he clearly links the relationship between the church and himself with the relationship of man and wife. But in the larger scope it has to do with the, pardon the expression, fundamental understanding that grace, while freely given to any who would ask, has rules and a heavy cost for those who are able to retain it. Grace once given by God can be and often is, discarded to the damnation of former believers who are careless of God’s repeated admonitions in scripture. To wit: One who is often reproved, yet remains stubborn, will suddenly be broken beyond healing. Proverbs 29:1

This whole issue came up again recently centered around a young lady who, after living with her boyfriend outside of wedlock and leading him to Christ in that time, was found out and expelled from her congregation, weeks before her wedding. My initial opinion was that was rather late in the game to find her out and didn’t help the situation any, as she was in the process of rectifying her error. We must always be quick to forgive and restore the genuinely penitent. But her reaction to the whole thing was certainly less than contrite so I’ll leave it to her pastor to be the voice of wisdom in that situation. What I could not ignore, as a man of God and student of theology, was the outcry of support to her status updates on Facebook (R). One of the most egregious responses she got included the following remark:

Times are very different from biblical times and while living with someone before marriage may not be the best choice it is definitely not the sin it once was.

Imagine! “Times have changed, so the Bible is irrelevant and Jesus’ own words are no longer binding on the believer.” Can there be a more depraved and apostate voice? And this was only one of many rushing to encourage the young lady by comforting her in her sin, with the full belief that sin in the life of a Christian is nothing more than a livable mistake, and not one that will actually separate you from God.

Well, in answer to A.W., the young woman who expressed the startling doctrine above, I have to point out one simple truth. Jesus is the foundation of the Church and our hope of salvation. If he is fallible in any point then we are fools to follow him and there is not hope in him. If we are right to trust him and have saving faith we cannot and will not question his authority or infallibility. That means on any subject, including divorce and remarriage, which he spoke, he is the last word and there can be no changing it because times have changed. Jesus claimed to be God in flesh and one with the father. If his words are not timeless and law for all time, then he lied and we are not saved. If he was true and we are saved by grace through his ministry and blood sacrifice then we have no authority to do other than he commanded. There is no third option.

The church as a whole is in crisis today because those in the pew are taught they can accept the worlds values, disregard Jesus’ commands, and remain in right relationship with God or at worst backslide without danger of damnation. There is a church movement that has taught us that we can live like the world and God will simply look on sadly, and that the church cannot judge the behavior of those who claim to be Christian. The Corinthian church faced a similar issue. They felt they were being loving and gracious by allowing those who were living in sin to be comfortable in the congregation. Paul takes three chapters from 4-6 of 1Cor. to show them the error of this thinking. He reaches the high point by saying cast out the immoral brother (or sister). The point being let them straighten out their issues outside so they don’t corrupt the young in the church, or introduce tolerance of habitual error.

In Hebrews Paul speaks at length about mercy and compassion and God’s willingness to forgive sin. This is where the Calvinists and Protestants gather their ideas regarding once in grace always in grace and the perverted gospel that judging is itself a sin. What is generally overlooked is the fact that the whole essay on perseverance of the saved, is bookended by the statement, before and after, that habitual sin will damn even the believer. This is found in Hebrews 6:4-8 and in Hebrews 10:26,27 demonstrating that the author clearly sees nothing in salvation by faith that allows for carnality and rebellion. You can lose your salvation for rebellion. Paul’s warning to Corinth, found in chapters 4, 5 & 6 of I Corinthians, is that the loving thing to do is kick people out so they will realize there error and repent before it is too late, then they can be welcomed back with full fellowship and love.

The world has infected the church with a lot of demonic ideas that seem like love and compassion, but are really just sin and damnation. The place where Satan seems to have made the greatest inroads is in the area of Divorce and Remarriage.

Jesus’ commands and New Covenant law regarding marriage is simple, and laid out in MAT 5:31-32 (nrsv), MAL 2:16-16 (nrsv), MAR 10:2-12 (nrsv), & 1CO 7:10-17 (nrsv), among a host other passages. These passages resolve to eight simple rules regarding marriage that are binding under the New Covenant and if a person confesses Christ he or she is bound by them thereafter. <edit>Bear in mind that these are standards for those who have already accepted Christ.

1) If you are offended by your spouse you can no-longer (as was custom in the day) kill her and get another. 2) Moses allowed divorce to those who are hardhearted so they wouldn’t be forced to confront rule #1 3) Given that hard-hearted is one of the signs used by Jesus and the apostles to indicate an unrepentant person It is clear that divorce is in fact legal but sinful never-the-less. 4) If you marry it is for life, period. The only legitimate excuse for divorce the infidelity of your spouse AND you must have not done the same. 5) If a person commits adultery and is divorced by his or her spouse, the spouse is free to remarry. The adulterer must remain celibate for life. 6) If you just can’t live with one another and have to separate, and that leads to the sin of divorce, a separation for any cause other than adultery make you responsible for your spouse’s needs for sex, any mistakes made, and neither of you can remarry except by reconciling to the original spouse. 7) Any remarriage that violates these principles is not a marriage before God regardless of the church’s stance on the subject and the partners are engaged in habitual sin. 8) A believer may never initiate divorce from an unbeliever nor separate from a spouse except by mutual consent and for a finite period. However, if an unbeliever (one who has never confessed Christ or is forever lost) leaves a believer, then the marriage is annulled without prejudice toward any children of the marriage.

The church is in crisis and people are dying spiritually in the pews because of sin they have been tricked into accepting into their lives by a selfish and hard-hearted generation of believers and unsaved who have driven godless values into the congregation and allowed them to fester.

People please wake up before it is too late.

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Trying new software for musings. Musings go back to a day before I had discovered the dreaded blog, and I never had the will to automate the process of updating. I edited each musing as a separate file and then cut and pasted the content of the formatted text into a web editor. This produced adequate results and I was satisfied. Recently I’ve been exposed to several blogs and have found the packaged blog software to be impressive, so I’m hanging up the ol html editor and moving up to a wysiwyg plugin on a SQL driven blog portal. I think I’m going to like it here. Lord willing and the rapture delays, I’ll be adding new musings this year. Lord bless you all.

Fred