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For Study, Prayer and Fellowship - 8:00 AM PDT on 08/02/2025:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82968961343?pwd=LzcwVjJKcWVESDRURlhDcXlNV0JUdz09
Meeting ID: 829 6896 1343
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08/02/2025 – Prologue – Last week we wrote: “In self-indulgent America, [2 Tim. 4:3-4] where everyone claims the right to freedom, but not to virtue.” What virtues [Col. 3:23] did we infer? We scream for our freedoms, avoiding the virtues necessary for freedom to exist. One author lists the following virtues. (He is a student of Stoic philosophy and his list reflects his studies.) “In the ancient world, virtue consisted of four components: Courage – bravery, fortitude, honor, sacrifice; Temperance – discipline, self-control, moderation, composure, balance; Justice – fairness, service, honesty, fellowship, goodness, kindness; and Wisdom – knowledge, education, truth, self-reflection, peace.
From a Christian perspective (preferred) there are two main categories of Christian virtues – Theological: faith, hope, and charity (love). These relate to God and are infused into believers by God’s grace: Faith – Belief in God and all that He has revealed. Hope – Trusting in God’s promises for the future and eternal life; Charity(Love) – Love for God above all things and love for our neighbor for God’s sake. Love is considered the greatest. The Cardinal Virtues, are rooted in classical philosophy, (adopted and elaborated upon by the Church Fathers): Prudence – Wisdom to make the right choices in life; Justice – Giving to God and others what is due them; Fortitude – Courage to face challenges and persevere in the pursuit of good; Temperance – Self-control and moderation in actions and desires. There are other related virtues – The Seven Heavenly virtues: Humility, Charity, Chastity,Gratitude, Temperance, Patience, and Diligence. These are often presented as counterparts to the seven deadly sins. Paul gives us the Fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Forbearance, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control. Virtues, for Christians, are their importance for living a life pleasing to God and growing in Christ-like character. They are a gift of divine grace and synthesized by human effort. They are essential for salvation, individual growth and positive contributions to society. They are basic truths, given by God, as the fundamental building blocks of Christian culture.
Third lesson: Our political or ecclesiastical differences have set a series of two absolutes against each other: truth/love; justice/compassion; our hearts/our heads, flesh/bone and soft/hard. We politicize our religion into Left/Right; liberal/conservative. The Left is a heart without a head and the Right is a head without a heart. The Right is frenzied when the Left uses compassion; the Left is apoplectic when the Right uses the word truth. The weaponization of these words have gotten us into persecutions and wars. Using political categorizations, we use the world’s terms to evaluate the church, instead of using God’s word to evaluate the world. It is hard to deceive the masses. We cannot fool a farmer as easily as we fool a scholar. But the numbers have flipped: at one time we had ten farmers for each scholar; now ten scholars for each farmer. Or a greater danger is that eventually every American citizen will be a lawyer. Today there are three principal sets of teachers (mind-molders): formal education (scholars); informal education (entertainment and journalism – the media). Americans wait in que to use these mind-molders because there are fewer farmers. However, the number of farmers is beginning to increase. Many more people want tasteful, chemical free food and to leave the regimentation of modern urban life. Folks realize they can grow edible ‘stuff’ on tiny plots of land. Thus, changing their entire outlook. Note, Satan gets the teachers first, then the students. That task is nearly complete. Moloch is back, roaming Western civilization in the universities. For example, only 3% of the media mind-molders say they support any limitations on abortions, while 80% of the folks want limitations. In Hitler’s holocaust the will to torture prisoners was directly proportional to a person’s level of education. In the ‘American holocaust’, folks share the same educational character. Americans do not pay much attention studying philosophy or – God. Many let down their guard to the indoctrination agenda. Many are not capable of even putting up a guard, because we experienced the con game in our beloved colleges. Faculties want to be politically correct and avant-garde by allowing deconstructionism to dominate their disciplines. (Deconstructionism – the analytic ex-amination of something, in order to reveal its’ inadequacies.) Deconstructionism often means losing faith all together – becoming atheists, agnostics, or spiritual. Some say deconstructionism means believing in Jesus, but struggling with how religious institutions fail. With all the talk of deconstructionism, very few people mean precisely the same thing when using the word. (Ex.: law, literature, philosophy, western values, reason and revelation). Many deconstructionists claim that truth is nothing more than the hypocritical face of power. Satan’s epistemology, can be summed by three actions: Dim the lights (enhance darkness); Obfuscate (seems so, but is not truthful); Appeal to passion (who needs reason). Epistemology – the study of the nature, origin, and limits of human understanding.
Fourth lesson: We cover the battlefield with peace banners, and deny a spiritual war engulfs us. This is the Big Lie of relativism. Folks rely on the fact that they espouse that there are no real absolutes, therefore there can be no real war. If we reject the idea that no evil is worth fighting against or there is no good worth fighting for, then we reject the notion of fighting and the idea that spiritual warfare exists. Who gains the advantage? Militarily, “Forewarned is forearmed.” The corollary: “Unwarned is unarmed”. The former is the voice of the hawk, the latter the voice of the dove. In combat which is victorious?
Fifth lesson: We must study the most successful strategy of Satan. Sex! It is Satan’s desire to distort the role of sex, God’s good creation, and our misuse and misunderstanding of Sex! Peter Kreeft, PhD, label it: “Satan’s Spectacularly Seven-Step Sexual Strategy. Seven S’s – the satanically sacred, serpentine letter.” Keep asking how do humans gain an advantage? We understand Satan is not all powerful, power remains with God. Satan is the father of deceit, the father of lies. The seven steps. 1) Satan’s summum bonum, ultimate end, is to win souls for hell. (Hell, for humans, is a destination and a matter of choice.) In sexual matters we forget Satan’s battle is to win souls for hell. We forget – Satan does not – advantage Satan. 2) The most effective method to achieve the previous, is to corrupt society, especially the un-informed conformists; folks who are other directed, (see above) and these other-directed folks who consider themselves to be non-conformists. A good society is one that makes it easy to be good. A bad society is one that makes it easy to be bad. Post-Industrial Western society has made it easy and provides so many opportunities to be bad. Satan agrees – advantage Satan. 3) The most powerful way to destroy a society is - destroy the family; society’s basic building block. The family is the onlyinstitution where most folks learn the lesson of unselfish love. Satan thinks this is the most dangerous les-son folks can learn. In a family a child learns they are loved not for doing, nor performing, but for being. Satan loves abortion – advantage Satan. 4) The family is destroyed by destroying its foundation, a stable marriage – advantage Satan. 5) Marriage is destroyed by loosening its glue: sexual fidelity – advantage Satan. 6) Sexual fidelity is destroyed by the sexual revolution – advantage Satan. 7) The sexual revolution is propagated by the media, mind-molders, who are massivelyin Satan’s camp. Sexual immorality undulates over generations. Gratuitous sexuality is everywhere - advantage Satan. Satan claims victory not by a frontal assault on the heart, but by capturing the heart - by capturing the hormones, human pride and man’s sin nature. “Did God really say …?” AMEN.
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