The President And The Constitution

Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants the president of the United States the power to be commander in chief of the armed forces (subject to declarations of war in Congress), to make treaties with other nations (subject to ratification in the Senate), to grant pardons, to appoint ambassadors, judges and other officers, to recommend measures to Congress. The Constitution also bestows a number of other minor powers based on these major components.

Nowhere in our nation’s governing document can one find a presidential power to regulate the minutiae of private business, much less take ownership of those private businesses. Yet that is how Barack Obama is wielding his ever-increasing power, despite taking an oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and … to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Liberal Theology

Quoting R. C. Sproul:

Liberal theology saw its heyday in the nineteenth century and raised its head again with the neo-liberalism that captured the mainline churches of the twentieth century. Yet it is by no means dead. Perhaps the place where liberalism is manifesting itself most dangerously is within the walls of churches that have historically been strongly evangelical. David F. Wells describes the crisis of the twenty-first century church as “vacuous worship.” A vacuous worship is one that is empty of content. It is satisfied with platitudes, pop psychology, and entertainment. Such worship is devoid of the Word of God and of the authentic sacrifice of praise.

Sotomayor’s Competence Questioned By US Supreme Court Decision

Sonia Sotomayor

According to the Supreme Court, white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, were illegally denied promotions because of their race. This completely reverses a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor supported as an appeals court judge.

 

Obama and the Democrats in Congress are trying to sell Sotomayor as one of the appellate court’s most brilliant minds. This is what happens, however, when a judge makes decisions based on his/her feelings instead of the facts and the law. The self-described “wise Latina woman” may not be so wise after all. Her past words and decisions indicate that she wants to legislate policy and law from the judge’s seat. America does not need another radical, secular progressive judge on its highest court.

Patton On Offense, Offense, Offense. . . .

Quoting General George S. Patton:

“In war the only sure defense is offense, and the efficiency of the offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it.”

“Always take the offensive…Never Dig in.”

US House Of Representatives Ignores Science To Push Through Cap And Trade/Global Warming Scheme

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a climate-change/cap and trade bill while the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. The reason for this change of direction is the growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens who doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

The Polish Academy of Sciences recently published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, only 11% of the population believes humans play any role in global warming. In France, Claude Allegre may soon lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Mr. Allegre, a geochemist, was once a global warming believer but has since rejected it. The New Zealand government has suspended its country’s cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics continues to grow:

“Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)”

The earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001. Scientific research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans.

Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist has published “Heaven and Earth,” a damning critique of the “evidence” underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing.

Video: Martin Luther Defends Himself At The Diet Of Worms

Put A Liberal In A Vacuum And. . . .

From: The Pen of Burt Prelutsky

When McCain joined with Ted Kennedy to pass their amnesty bill, he got worked over pretty good by conservatives. When Bush ran up the national debt, he got clobbered by Republicans and Democrats, alike. But when, in just three short months, Obama tripled the deficit, nary a discouraging word did we hear from a single liberal. Massive inflation looms over all of us, but Democrats just keep smiling and giving each other high-fives while Obama cranks out funny money like a counterfeiter on speed.

Of all the terrible things Democrats are responsible for, perhaps the worst is the way they foster and promote class and race wars in America for their own political advantage. They tell black people that nothing is ever their fault — not early pregnancies, not an embarrassing school dropout rate, not an overemphasis on athletics, not selling or using drugs — that everything, instead, is the fault of white Republicans. To poor people, they say they’d be rich if only white Republicans didn’t steal all their money, just as they say to the 41% of Americans who pay no income taxes, “here’s a rebate.”

And who is feeding them all this tripe? Why none other than Charles Schumer, Keith Olbermann, John Kerry, David Letterman, Dianne Feinstein, Bill Maher, Norman Lear, the Clintons, Michael Moore, Harry Reid, Jon Stewart, Patrick Leahy, Arianna Huffington, Barbara Boxer and George Soros, all of whom are white millionaires. Clearly, P.T. Barnum was right about the birthrate of suckers and the Baltimore sage, H.L. Mencken, wasn’t being overly cynical when he observed that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. . . .

The frustration of trying to be logical in an illogical world is nothing new. In the 19th century, a clergyman named Charles Colton observed: “The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.”

Read more. . . .

House Cap And Trade/Climate Bill Will Send American Jobs Overseas

Worship Styles

Quoting R. C. Sproul:

There are different styles of worship that can be pleasing to God. However, all worship that is pleasing to God is worship grounded in Spirit and in truth. We can have lively worship, manifesting great interest and excitement, with doctrine and truth eliminated. On the other hand, we can have what some call a dead orthodoxy, where the creedal truths of the historic Christian faith remain central to the worship of the church, but the worship itself does not flow from the heart and lacks spiritual vitality.

The New Tea Party Song

Patton On War Tactics

Quoting General George S. Patton:

“There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change; it is, ‘To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.’ “

New State Department Legal Advisor Believes The UN Should Interpret The US Constitution

Written by Jim Brown:

By a 62-35 vote, the Senate . . . approved the nomination of former Yale Law School dean Harold Koh for the position of legal advisor to the State Department. . . .

Conservatives have strenuously opposed the nomination because of, among other things, Koh’s belief that the Supreme Court should look to international bodies such as the United Nations and even European courts to help interpret the U.S. Constitution. Koh, an open homosexual, has also been actively involved in the push to legalize same-sex “marriage.”

Video: The Expository Genius of John Calvin

Dr. Steven J. Lawson discusses his book about John Calvin:

A Nation Based On The General Principles Of Christianity

John Adams

From: The Pen of Gary DeMar

[A] study of [John] Adams’ private and public statements show that he believed that Christianity must be rooted within the nation’s culture in order for the nation to survive. Adams expressed his religious views on numerous occasions, but his call for a National Fast Day on March 6, 1799, is the most expressive:

As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgment of the growing providence of a Supreme Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributer of rewards and punishments are conducive equally to the happiness of individuals and to the well-being of communities….

I have thought proper to recommend, and I hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain, as far as may be, from their secular occupation, and devote the time to the sacred duties of religion, in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before Him.

“I have thought proper to recommend, and I hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer…. with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that “righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” [Prov. 14:34]. The “Great Mediator and Redeemer” is Jesus Christ. On another occasion, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson stating, “The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were … the general principles of Christianity.”

A few years later Adams wrote a letter to Jefferson in which he stated that “Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite society, I mean hell.” (America’s 200 Year War On Terror, pp. 12-13)

Climate Bill Is “A Huge, Regressive Tax”

Written by Marc Morano:

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed global warming bill (219-212 vote, Friday). . . .

The House of Representatives passed a bill it did not read, did not understand. A bill that is based on crumbling scientific claims and a bill that will have no detectable climate impact. . . .

To illustrate just how delusional some of the supporters of the climate bill have become, imagine if in 1909 the U.S. Congress passed a bill attempting to predict climate, temperature and the energy mix powering our national economy in the year 2000. Any such attempt would have been ridiculed, but somehow in 2009, attempting to control the economy and climate of the year 2100 is seen as reasonable by many. . . .

Even Obama advisor Warren Buffett failed to tow the rhetorical line on the climate bill. Buffet came out strongly opposed to cap and trade, saying it would be “a huge, regressive tax.”

Read the full article here. . . .

When People See You, Does God Look Good?

Sam Storms

From: The Desk of Sam Storms

In case you skipped it, let me repeat the question in the title: “When People see You, does God look Good?” Not many of us phrase it in precisely that way or even think in those terms. It’s far more natural for us to ask, “When people see me, do I look good?” Do I impress them with my charisma? Are they captivated by my wit? Are they attracted by how I dress? Did they take note of my intelligence? Do they still think of me an hour or two later?

We are obsessed with what others think of us. We are elated when they find in us something to praise and are crushed when they are offended. That is why we are so given to self-commendation, self-promotion, and self-improvement. So often our very identity and thus our value hang suspended on the opinion of those who “see” us.

But wait a minute. If this sort of concern for self is so sinful, why did Paul “commend” himself to the Corinthians here in 2 Corinthians 6:4a? And doesn’t this conflict with his earlier denunciation of self-commendation in 3:1? It would appear from these two texts that there are at least two sorts of self-commendation, one good (6:4a) and the other bad (3:1).

Let’s take a closer look at this passage (6:4a), for Paul does not “commend” himself and leave it at that, as if his efforts were devoted to securing a positive response from the Corinthian church. It is as “servants of God”, or more accurately, “ministers” of God, that he and his co-workers labor to elicit their approval. And the criteria to which he appeals as grounds for their acceptance are not very appealing: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, hunger, slander, sorrow, etc. Not the sort of things one would typically include on a resume!

Continue reading. . . .

Obamacare: When Bad Ideas Become Law

From: The Pen of Michael Tanner

Drip by painful drip, the details of the Democratic health-care-reform plan have been leaking out. And from what we can see so far, it looks like bad news for American taxpayers, health-care providers, and, most important, patients.

The plan would not initially create a government-run, single-payer system such as those in Canada and Britain. Private insurance would still exist, at least for a time. But it would be reduced to little more than a public utility, operating much like the electric company, with the government regulating every aspect of its operation.

It would be mandated both that employers offer coverage and that individuals buy it. A government-run plan, similar to Medicare, would be set up to compete with private insurers. The government would undertake comparative-effectiveness and cost-effectiveness research, and use the results to impose practice guidelines on providers. Private insurance would face a host of new regulations, including a requirement to insure all applicants and a prohibition on pricing premiums on the basis of risk. Subsidies would be extended to help middle earners purchase insurance. And the government would subsidize and manage the development of a national system of electronic medical records.

The net result would be an unprecedented level of government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and over some of the most important, personal, and private decisions in Americans’ lives.

 Let’s look at some of the most troubling ideas in detail.

EPA Suppressed Report That Demonstrates No Need For House Climate Bill

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.

The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.

Read the full report here. . . .

Men May Be Saved If They Will

From: The Pen of Charles Spurgeon

“Oh!” saith the Arminian, “men may be saved if they will.” We reply, “My dear sir, we all believe that; but it is just the if they will that is the difficulty. We assert that no man will come to Christ unless he be drawn; nay, we do not assert it, but Christ himself declares it—”Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life;’ and as long as that “ye will not come’ stands on record in Holy Scripture, we shall not be brought to believe in any doctrine of the freedom of the human will.” It is strange how people, when talking about free-will, talk of things which they do not at all understand. “Now,” says one, “I believe men can be saved if they will.” My dear sir, that is not the question at all. The question is, are men ever found naturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? We declare, upon Scriptural authority, that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ. You reply, that men sometimes are willing, without the help of the Holy Spirit. I answer—Did you ever meet with any person who was? Scores and hundreds, nay, thousands of Christians have I conversed with, of different opinions, young and old, but it has never been my lot to meet with one who could affirm that he came to Christ of himself, without being drawn. The universal confession of all true believers is this—”I know that unless Jesus Christ had sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, I would to this very hour have been wandering far from him, at a distance from him, and loving that distance well.” With common consent, all believers affirm the truth, that men will not come to Christ till the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them. (Sermon No. 182)

No Toleration Of Christians In Muslim Countries

From: The Pen of Gary DeMar

It’s a story that hasn’t gotten much press. Bibles translated into Afghan languages were sent to a U.S. soldier at a base in Afghanistan. The Bibles were later confiscated by chaplains and destroyed to make sure that American troops did not violate government rules which bar soldiers from sharing their faith with Afghans. So it’s OK to blow up stuff and shoot and kill Afghans, but it’s illegal to share the gospel with them. . . .

It’s not just soldiers who are denied the right to present the gospel in Muslim nations. Just being a Christian in a Muslim nation of which you are a citizen can get you thrown in jail or worse. Foreign aid workers who have no link to our military are under constant threat if it is perceived that they might present the gospel. Christian minorities are persecuted on a regular basis. Some have had their apartments searched for Bibles and other Christian literature. Converting to Christianity can get a Muslim convert the death penalty. Take a look at the video Muslim Persecution of Christians produced by the Terrorism Awareness Project. It reports in graphic terms on current instances of anti-Christian violence that is said to be justified based on Islamic theology. These persecuted Christians were minding their own business. It didn’t matter. They weren’t Islamic. . . .

Continue reading. . . .

The Importance Of Church Discipline

Quoting R. C. Sproul:

When the church fails to discipline its members for gross and heinous sins, particularly sins of a public nature, that community becomes infected with the immorality of the secular culture. This occurs when the church so desperately wants to be accepted by the pagan culture that it adopts the very morality of the pagan community and imitates it, baptizing it with religious language.

Green Jobs Raise Unemployment

In The Words of George Will:

The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating “green jobs” in “alternative energy” even though Spain’s unemployment rate is 18.1 percent — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs?

Continue reading. . . .

Moral Courage

Quoting General George S. Patton:

“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.”

Cap And Trade Is A Huge Tax On You

Written by Gary Bauer:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday that the House of Representatives will be voting on “cap and trade” legislation this week. A recent Rasmussen poll found that only 24% of likely voters correctly understand the term, and I’d be willing to bet that an even smaller share of Congress has read the 1,200 page bill. Representative John Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, summarized it best when he said, “Nobody in this country realizes that cap and trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one!”

Writing in the Washington Post several weeks ago, Robert Samuelson put it this way: “The centerpiece of Obama’s agenda is a ‘cap and trade’ program. This would be, in effect, a tax on fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas). The idea is to raise their prices so that households and businesses would use less or switch to costlier ‘alternative’ energy sources, such as solar. In general, we would spend more on energy and get less of it.”

Spend more and get less. That sounds like Obama’s rationed healthcare proposal too! That concept is antithetical to economic progress and rising standards of living. But it’s generally the outcome of socialism and leftwing thinking.

According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation, the “cap and trade” bill before the House will result in a “58 percent increase in gas prices, 90 percent for electricity, and 55 percent for natural gas. Cumulative higher energy costs for a household of four from 2012-2035 would reach nearly $20,000.” The Heritage Foundation also predicts more than one million job losses as a direct result of higher energy costs.

Just think about that for a moment. Here we are in the middle of a deep recession, with the president predicting double-digit unemployment, and this White House and the liberal politicians on Capitol Hill are scheming to impose one of the biggest tax increases in history. It will affect every American who turns on a light switch, drives to work or consumes products, since just about every economic activity involves the use of fossil fuels.

Fighting The Battle For Truth

John MacArthur

In The Words of John MacArthur:

A couple of weeks ago Tom Pennington gave me a quote from Martin Luther that I found very interesting. This is what Martin Luther said, “If I profess with the loudest and clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God, except that little point, which the world and the devil are, at that moment, attacking. I am not confessing Christ. However, boldly, I may be professing him. Where the battle rages, said Luther, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefield, besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point,” end quote.

Luther was saying if you’re gonna call yourself a Christian then you have to fight the battle where the battle rages. And where it rages today, and I think all through history, is at the very point of the truth of Scripture.

The Bible is under incessant assault from the enemy. It’s pretty easy to understand, from the biblical prospective, God is the source of, author of, truth. Satan is the source of, author of, lies. And, therein, is the battle, God’s truth, Satan’s lies. And Satan attacks God’s truth relentlessly with his lies. . . .

Some people think, you know, that the fall of man happened because Eve ate an apple. No. The fall happened because Eve stripped God of his glory, because Eve made a twisted assault on the holy perfections of God. She didn’t trust what he said and she didn’t trust his character. She blasphemed God. The eating was just the evidence. Because when she ate she was saying, “God lied, I’m not gonna die. And Satan told me the truth. I’m gonna be like God. And even if he doesn’t like it I’m gonna do it anyway.” So it was disobedience to what God said. It was the conviction that God was a liar, that God was motivated by selfishness, and it was open rebellion. So the father of lies brought down the whole human race on the premise that you can’t trust what God said. He doesn’t tell the truth.

Now folks I can put it simply. Either the Bible is true or it’s not. There’s no in-between. It’s not part of it’s true and part of it’s not. It’s not whatever is true to you is true and what ever is not true to you is not true. It’s either true or it’s not.

Thirty eight hundred and eight times the Old Testament claims to be the Word of God. The New Testament writers repeatedly claim that it is the Word of God. Jesus claimed that Scripture could not be broken, that it was the Word of God. Not one jot or tiller would ever in any wise fail until it had all come to past, even though heaven and earth would pass away. You can say it’s a lie or you can say it’s true, and there’s really nothing in the middle. . . .

Read this entire sermon. . . .