Driving Away Fear

From Koinonia House

DRIVING AWAY FEAR

Japan and Taiwan are feeling the pain of plummeting exports. Nearly five million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits, and even the New York subway system is collecting less cash as fewer people need a train to get to work. We face the uncertainty of a crumbling economy. The government is throwing hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to try to prop it up like golden shovels against a collapsing sand castle, and we anticipate its crashing down and taking those expensive shovels with it. It is easy to be afraid.

Even in a cheerful economy, and even if we have solid jobs, there are a lot of things to fear. The danger is all around us. Professional kidnappers could snatch our kids to sell on the black market. Our cell phones might be giving us cancer. The asbestos from our elementary school 40 years ago might be giving us cancer. The preservatives in our food might give us cancer. If we eat out, we might get Hepatitis A or E coli, or mad cow disease. There are not enough bees pollinating the world’s crops and orchards. The car tires we cannot afford to replace might erupt on the freeway, causing us to crash into a tractor-trailer and explode in a fiery ball.

There are plenty of things we can fear. Yet, fear does not protect us. If we concentrate on every potential danger and anticipate every disaster, we still may not be able to stop them. Even if we buy brand new tires, they can still pick up a nail and end up thub thubbing on the freeway. Even if we never ever eat out, we can still get E coli food poisoning from our spinach salad at home. We have a responsibility to be wise stewards, to make good decisions, and yet as the great poet Robert Burns said so notably, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, Gang aft agley.” That is, no matter how hard we try and how carefully we plan, things can still go terribly wrong.

It’s Murphy’s Law, after all. The buttered toast always lands face down, and if you have a vital presentation to give on Monday, the kids are sure to throw up all Sunday night.

Fear is natural, and it is a normal response to uncertainty and danger. Yet, fear is not a virtue like caution or prudence. Fear simply robs our lives of joy. The question is therefore, how do we face joblessness or drive on bad tires we can’t afford to replace? How do we look at a pile of bills that we have no earthly way of paying and not worry?

Clothing the Lilies:
Obviously God is the answer. Obviously we need to believe by faith that God truly does love us and cares about us and can be trusted with our lives. We need to believe what he said in Matthew about the lilies of the field,

“Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” – Matthew 6:30-33

Certainly trusting God and putting Him first is the answer. But, while it is easy to say we need to trust God, it is often much harder to do. Simon Peter knew Jesus personally and had watched him perform many miracles, and yet as he walked out to Jesus on the water, he was still frightened by the wind and waves, and he began to sink. We understand Peter; we’re just like him.

So, how can we stop being afraid of the wind and waves when they are loud and crashing into our faces?

1) We love Him.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.” -1 John 4:18

We love God because He first loved us, because He gave His Son for us, which alone is worth all the rejoicing in the world. And as we praise Him and worship Him and enjoy Him, the fear cannot remain.

2) We remember that the waves aren’t real.

To us they are very real, and the salt water up our sinuses can be painful. But, in God’s power, in God’s eyes, they are nothing. To God, the terrible monsters that rise up above us to destroy us are merely origami tigers. They look fierce, but in God’s hands they are no real danger. God does not need a good economy to provide for us and pay our bills. If He sees fit to give us a broken down car to drive, then He is capable of holding that broken down car together for us. He is never worried.

Not By Sight
God wants us to learn to live by faith and not by sight. Looks are more often deceiving than we realize. We mistake riches for blessing, and they may not be. We mistake meager paychecks with God’s neglect rather than accepting them as part of His purposes for us for right now. Remember what Jesus said to the Church of the Laodiceans:

“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” – Revelation 3:17-18

These are the times when we decide what we truly believe. Are we playing games or do we really believe that our God is the God of the Universe, who faithfully holds together every atom in our hands? Will we truly hand our lives to Him and trust Him enough to say, as Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him:” -Job 13:15.   Are we willing to buy of Jesus gold tried in the fire?

When Peter trusted Jesus, he did walk on water. God fed the Israelites manna every day in the barren wilderness, and their shoes did not wear out. God can do anything He wants to do. He’s not worried. And since He’s the God of the Universe, and He knows better, then we should not be worried either. Instead, let’s offer Him a sacrifice of praise and love Him. Allow His perfect Love to drive the fear far far away.

Related Links:

• How To Fight Fear – King’s High Way
• Letting Go of Fear and Worry – King’s High Way
• Fearing Fear Itself – Koinonia House

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Eduction Choices: We don’t need no thought control

From Koinonia House

EDUCATION CHOICES: WE DON’T NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL

Spring will officially arrive in just less than a month. High school students are busy applying to colleges, and parents of 4-year-olds have to move quickly to get their little ones into limited pre-school spots. It’s the time of year when adults fill out applications to go back to school, and impatient fifth graders feel summer will never come.

We all know a good education is vital.  In the “old” days, our forefathers wanted to make sure children were literate so that they could read the Bible. Yet, not only is the Word of God hardly permitted through school doors these days, but too many high schools churn out students who know more about condoms than about history or grammar.  Parents wonder how to both give their kids a great education and protect their hearts. Happily, an increasing number of education choices have been made available during the past few decades.

Home-School:
After decades of fighting for the right to educate their children at home, home-schooling parents have gained massive miles of ground. In the 1980s, states and education organizations battled against parents who wanted to home-school; today home-schooling is legal in every state, and many states promote home-schooling by offering parents a variety of helps. Cooperative school districts allow students to take selected classes from public schools and even participate in after-school sports. The reporting requirements for home-schooling differ from state to state, but those requirements are spelled out and easily accessible online. There is no longer a single state that absolutely requires parents to be certified in order to teach their own children. The stigma has slowly been worn away, and countless thousands of families are enjoying their God-given rights to raise their own kids.

Thanks to groups like the Home School Legal Defense Assocation (HSLDA), new victories are being made every year. On Monday, the Virginia House passed Senate Bill 1547 without opposition, making it possible for home-school students to be eligible for scholarships just like other students. The state needs to develop standards for giving home-schoolers the equivalent of a grade point average for scholarships that require one.

It benefits states to promote and foster home-schooling. Not only do home-school students tend to excel, but students who stay home also free up seats in overcrowded public school classrooms, benefitting the rest of the students.

Home-School Co-ops:
Home-schooling is not easy. It requires commitment and time and energy from parents and students alike. Home-school co-ops and support groups have sprouted and matured in every state. Some co-ops are simple once-a-month gatherings in which parents connect and take their students on field trips. Some co-ops offer once-a-week science or art or music classes. Some co-ops have become consistent, frequent gatherings in which parents partner up to teach students. Then, there are co-ops like the Christian Family Cooperative, which is like an actual school three days per week. Half the week 150 students meet for morning classes at Christian Family, and the rest of the week their parents fill in the gaps. These types of supports have helped increasingly more parents enjoy home-school as an option.

Charter Schools:
Not all families are able to home-school due to financial or time constraints. Yet, parents in poor or high-population areas have long sought alternatives to their failing public schools. Charter schools have proven to be a reasonable second choice in many cities. Charter schools are funded by taxes just like regular public schools, but they are freed from a lot of the red tape that hobbles public education. Charter schools operate under a pact – a “charter” – with the local school system. They get the freedom to hire their own teachers and use their own teaching methods, but in return they have to maintain high standards. For instance, a charter school might hire a historian with great communication skills, even if he does not have a state teaching certification. If the charter school fails to produce results, it can be shut down. This increased freedom paired with accountability has allowed charter schools to succeed.

In January, Donna Gundle-Krieg wrote in the Education Improvement Examiner, “While many charter schools are great, some have been closed for not performing. Doesn’t the closing of non-performing schools demonstrate the accountability of the system? Have you ever seen a public school closed for non-performance?”   Touché.

Noting the success of charter schools, Bill Gates said in his January 2009 letter from his pro-education foundation, “If you want your child to get the best education possible, it’s actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.”

We all know the truth of that statement.  We all can think of incredible teachers who gave us a love for the subject matter by the way they taught it.  We also can all remember wretched teachers who made every day a droning misery.  Charter schools have the freedom to focus on getting great teachers, whoever they may be.

Private Schools:
Many parents would love to send their children to private schools. Not only are class sizes smaller, offering teachers more one-on-one time with students, but the family atmosphere of many small private schools promotes tremendous parent-teacher communication. Parents can know exactly what their children are being taught and feel confident that their children’s education will match their values. The problem of course is the cost. Public school is “free” and private school is not. There are options, however! Many private schools offer scholarships for low-income students. As the economy tilts, private schools may have a difficult time keeping students and may be willing to make deals with parents determined to find a way.

School vouchers are another option in a few states like Wisconsin, Georgia, and Louisiana. The Supreme Court declared in 2002 that school vouchers were not illegal, freeing states to offer parents vouchers to send their children to private schools when public schools were floundering. To find out what is going on with vouchers in your state, see the links below.

Public Schools Plus:
The majority of parents will choose to send their kids to the public school down the road, with a school bus to pick them up in the morning and bring them home in the evening. While some parents are disgusted with their public schools they still see no workable alternative for their children.  On the other hand, many parents believe their local schools are just fine. There are some excellent, dedicated teachers in public schools, and many parents will be pleased with what they are getting with their tax dollars.  Despite the NEA, public school teachers and administrators can still have the same values as the parents of the community, and do a great job.  Many wonderful public school teachers are just as frustrated with the state of the union as parents are, and should be treated as partners and not enemies.

Still, we live in a confusing world, filled with a flurry of conflicting ideas.  Plenty of public school classes are absolutely anti-Christian and promote humanism as a matter-of-fact.  Parents need to make sure their kids have a solid Biblical world view and know how to defend their faith when they go to school or college or out into the world. Whatever school children attend, there are many things parents can do to prepare kids for the serious ideological battles they will face as teens and young adults. For instance:

a) Turn off the television. You don’t have to become Attila the TV Destroyer, but limit the amount of time kids spend in front of a screen.
b) Spend time with your kids. Enjoy their company. Learn about them. Let them learn about you. Your kids will be more likely to listen to you if they have a real, warm relationship with you.
c) Take the time to help them with school work. This not only keeps you up on what they’re studying, but helps them learn the material. If you can’t remember how to do algebra, find somebody who does. Encourage your kids. Let them know you’re behind them.
d) Engage in interesting discussions with your children about important issues. Ask them what they think about sex, about the existence of God, about the morality of throwing somebody off a life boat (for those of you who remember that happy little social experiment.)  Work through controversies with them so that they can both learn to be good thinkers and also understand solid answers to hard questions. Give them reliable, age-appropriate information. If you don’t know the answers to their questions, hunt down the answers with them.
e) Read together. After all, with the television off, you need to find something else to do. Read classics.  Read mysteries. Pick out books on controversial subjects that interest your kids, and take turns reading while doing the dishes or drawing or putting together jigsaw puzzles.
f) Go to conferences. For instance, Summit Ministries offers week-long conferences for both students and adults. The conferences are geared toward helping students know how to defend a Biblical worldview.  There are ministries that focus on evolution/creation issues, or the historicity of the Bible, or promoting healthy relationships, or the Christian history of America.  Find a ministry that focuses on a subject of interest to your kids, and go learn all you can together.

We have a lot of options these days in seeking out what is best for our kids. In the end, parents are responsible for raising their children, and we all need to do so prayerfully, carefully, and with the guidance of our own Heavenly Father.  It’s our responsibility to give our kids the tools they need to be strong, bright lamps on a hill, and not allow their lights to be puffed out by deceptions and misinformation.

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” -1 Peter 3:15

Related Links:

• Homeschool Parents Aren’t Going It Alone – KnoxNews.com
• Homeschool Scholarship Bill Gets Another Unanimous Vote – HSLDA
• Nine Lies About School Choice: Proving the Critics Wrong – Center for Education Reform
• School Choice In Your State – Friedman Foundation
• Are Charter Schools Good For Our Children? – Education Improvement Examiner
• Home-Schooling: It’s The Teacher Not The School – The Washington Times
• Worldview Wars – Koinonia House

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Proverbs 8:32-36; Wisdom’s Exhortation; We have here the application of Wisdom’s discourse; the design and tendency of it is to bring us all into an entire subjection to the laws of religion, to make us wise and good, not to fill our heads with speculations, or our tongues with disputes, but to rectify what is amiss in our hearts and lives.

Proverbs 8:32-36

32 Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.   33 Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.   34 Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.   35 For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.   36 But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.

We have here the application of Wisdom’s discourse; the design and tendency of it is to bring us all into an entire subjection to the laws of religion, to make us wise and good, not to fill our heads with speculations, or our tongues with disputes, but to rectify what is amiss in our hearts and lives. In order to this, here is,

I. An exhortation to hear and obey the voice of Wisdom, to attend and comply with the good instructions that the word of God gives us, and in them to discern the voice of Christ, as the sheep know the shepherd’s voice.

1. We must be diligent hearers of the word; for how can we believe in him of whom we have not heard? “Hearken unto me, O you children!” v. 32. “Read the word written, sit under the word preached, bless God for both, and hear him in both speaking to you.” Let children in age, and what they hearken to then, it is likely, they will be so seasoned by as to be governed by all their days. Let Wisdom’s children justify Wisdom by hearkening to her and show themselves to be indeed her children. We must hear Wisdom’s words,

(1.) Submissively, and with a willing heart (v. 33): “Hear instruction, and refuse it not, either as that which you need not or as that which you like not; it is offered you as a kindness, and it is at your peril if you refuse it.” Those that reject the counsel of God reject it against themselves, Luke vii. 30. “Refuse it not now, lest you should not have another offer.”

(2.) Constantly, and with an attentive ear. We must hear Wisdom so as to watch daily at her gates, as beggars to receive an alms, as clients and patients to receive advice, and to wait as servants, with humility, and patience, and ready observance, at the posts of her doors. See here what a good house Wisdom keeps, for every day is dole-day; what a good school, for every day is lecture-day. While we have God’s works before our eyes, and his word in our hand, we may be every day hearing Wisdom, and learning instruction from her. See here what a dutiful and diligent attendance is required of all Christ’s disciples; they must watch at the gates.

[1.] We must lay hold on all opportunities of getting knowledge and grace, and must get into, and keep in, a constant settled course of communion with God.

[2.] We must be very humble in our attendance on divine instructions, and be glad of any place, even the meanest, so we may but be within hearing of them, as David, who would gladly be a door-keeper in the house of God.

[3.] We must raise our expectations of these instructions, and hearken to them with care, and patience, and perseverance, must watch and wait, as Christ’s hearers, that hanged on him to hear him, as the word in the original is (Luke xix. 48) and (ch. xxi. 38) came early in the morning to hear him.

2. We must be conscientious doers of the work, for we are blessed only in our deed. It is not enough to hearken unto Wisdom’s words, but we must keep her ways (v. 32), do every thing that she prescribes, keep within the hedges of her ways, and not transgress them, keep in the tracks of her ways, proceed and persevere in them. “Hear instruction and be wise; let it be a means to make you wise in ordering your conversation.” What we know is known in vain if it do not make us wise, v. 33.

II. An assurance of happiness to all those that do hearken to Wisdom. They are blessed, v. 32, and again v. 34. Those are blessed that watch and wait at Wisdom’s gates; even their attendance there is their happiness; it is the best place they can be in. Those are blessed that wait there, for they shall not be put to wait long; let them continue to knock awhile and it shall be opened to them. They are seeking Wisdom, and they shall find what they seek. But will it make them amends if they do find it? Yes (v. 35): Whoso finds me finds life, that is, all happiness, all that good which he needs or can desire. He finds life in that grace which is the principle of spiritual life and the pledge of eternal life. He finds life, for he shall obtain favour of the Lord, and in his favour is life. If the king’s favour is towards a wise son, much more the favour of the King of kings. Christ is Wisdom, and he that finds Christ, that obtains an interest in him, he finds life; for Christ is life to all believers. He that has the Son of God has life, eternal life, and he shall obtain favour of the Lord, who is well-pleased with all those that are in Christ; nor can we obtain God’s favour, unless we find Christ and be found in him.

III. The doom passed upon all those that reject Wisdom and her proposals, v. 36. They are left to ruin themselves, and Wisdom will not hinder them, because they have set at nought all her counsel.

1. Their crime is very great; they sin against Wisdom, rebel against its light and laws, thwart its designs, and by their folly offend it. They sin against Christ; they act in contempt of his authority, and in contradiction to all the purposes of his life and death. This is construed into hating Wisdom, hating Christ; they are his enemies, who will not have him to reign over them. What can appear worse than hating him who is the centre of all beauty and fountain of all goodness, love itself?

2. Their punishment will be very just, for they wilfully bring it upon themselves.

(1.) Those that offend Christ do the greatest wrong to themselves; they wrong their own souls; they wound their own consciences, bring a blot and stain upon their souls, which renders them odious in the eyes of God, and unfit for communion with him; they deceive themselves, disturb themselves, destroy themselves. Sin is a wrong to the soul.

(2.) Those that are at variance with Christ are in love with their own ruin: Those that hate me love death; they love that which will be their death, and put that from them which would be their life. Sinners die because they will die, which leaves them inexcusable, makes their condemnation the more intolerable, and will for ever justify God when he judges. O Israel! thou hast destroyed thyself.

- Matthew Henry Commentary

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Proverbs 8:22-31; Wisdom Eternal and Divine; That it is an intelligent and divine person that here speaks seems very plain, and that it is not meant of a mere essential property of the divine nature, for Wisdom here has personal properties and actions; and that intelligent divine person can be no other than the Son of God Himself.

Proverbs 8:22-31

22 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.   23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.   24 When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.   25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:   26 While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.   27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:   28 When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:   29 When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:   30 Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;   31 Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.

That it is an intelligent and divine person that here speaks seems very plain, and that it is not meant of a mere essential property of the divine nature, for Wisdom here has personal properties and actions; and that intelligent divine person can be no other than the Son of God himself, to whom the principal things here spoken of wisdom are attributed in other scriptures, and we must explain scripture by itself. If Solomon himself designed only the praise of wisdom as it is an attribute of God, by which he made the world and governs it, so to recommend to men the study of that wisdom which belongs to them, yet the Spirit of God, who indited what he wrote, carried him, as David often, to such expressions as could agree to no other than the Son of God, and would lead us into the knowledge of great things concerning him. All divine revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, and here we are told who and what he is, as God, designed in the eternal counsels to be the Mediator between God and man. The best exposition of these verses we have in the first four verses of St. John’s gospel. In the beginning was the Word, &c. Concerning the Son of God observe here,

I. His personality and distinct subsistence, one with the Father and of the same essence, and yet a person of himself, whom the Lord possessed (v. 22), who was set up (v. 23), was brought forth (v. 24, 25), was by him (v. 30), for he was the express image of his person, Heb. i. 3.

II. His eternity; he was begotten of the Father, for the Lord possessed him, as his own Son, his beloved Son, laid him in his bosom; he was brought forth as the only-begotten of the Father, and this before all worlds, which is most largely insisted upon here. The Word was eternal, and had a being before the world, before the beginning of time; and therefore it must follow that it was from eternity. The Lord possessed him in the beginning of his way, of his eternal counsels, for those were before his works. This way indeed had no beginning, for God’s purposes in himself are eternal like himself, but God speaks to us in our own language. Wisdom explains herself (v. 23): I was set up from everlasting. The Son of God was, in the eternal counsels of God, designed and advanced to be the wisdom and power of the Father, light and life, and all in all both in the creation and in the redemption of the world. That he was brought forth as to his being, and set up as to the divine counsels concerning his office, before the world was made, is here set forth in a great variety of expressions, much the same with those by which the eternity of God himself is expressed. Ps. xc. 2, Before the mountains were brought forth.

1. Before the earth was, and that was made in the beginning, before man was made; therefore the second Adam had a being before the first, for the first Adam was made of the earth, the second had a being before the earth, and therefore is not of the earth, John iii. 31.

2. Before the sea was (v. 24), when there were no depths in which the waters were gathered together, no fountains from which those waters might arise, none of that deep on which the Spirit of God moved for the production of the visible creation, Gen. i. 2.

3. Before the mountains were, the everlasting mountains, v. 25. Eliphaz, to convince Job of his inability to judge of the divine counsels, asks him (Job xv. 7), Wast thou made before the hills? No, thou wast not. But before the hills was the eternal Word brought forth. 4. Before the habitable parts of the world, which men cultivate, and reap the profits of (v. 26), the fields in the valleys and plains, to which the mountains are as a wall, which are the highest part of the dust of the world; the first part of the dust (so some), the atoms which compose the several parts of the world; the chief or principal part of the dust, so it may be read, and understood of man, who was made of the dust of the ground and is dust, but is the principal part of the dust, dust enlivened, dust refined. The eternal Word had a being before man was made, for in him was the life of men.

III. His agency in making the world. He not only had a being before the world, but he was present, not as a spectator, but as the architect, when the world was made. God silenced and humbled Job by asking him, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who hath laid the measures thereof? (Job xxxviii. 4, &c.). Wast thou that eternal Word and wisdom, who was the prime manager of that great affair? No; thou art of yesterday.” But here the Son of God, referring, as it should seem, to the discourse God had with Job, declares himself to have been engaged in that which Job could not pretend to be a witness of and a worker in, the creation of the world. By him God made the worlds, Eph. iii. 9; Heb. i. 2; Col. i. 16.

1. When, on the first day of the creation, in the very beginning of time, God said, Let there be light, and with a word produced it, this eternal Wisdom was that almighty Word: Then I was there, when he prepared the heavens, the fountain of that light, which, whatever it is here, is there substantial.

2. He was no less active when, on the second day, he stretched out the firmament, the vast expanse, and set that as a compass upon the face of the depth (v. 27), surrounded it on all sides with that canopy, that curtain. Or it may refer to the exact order and method with which God framed all the parts of the universe, as the workman marks out his work with his line and compasses. The work in nothing varied from the plan of it formed in the eternal mind.

3. He was also employed in the third day’s work, when the waters above the heavens, were gathered together by establishing the clouds above, and those under the heavens by strengthening the fountains of the deep, which send forth those waters (v. 28), and by preserving the bounds of the sea, which is the receptacle of those waters, v. 29. This speaks much the honour of this eternal Wisdom, for by this instance God proves himself a God greatly to be feared (Jer. v. 22) that he has placed the sand for the bound of the sea, that the dry land might continue to appear above water, fit to be a habitation for man; and thus he has appointed the foundation of the earth. How able, how fit, is the Son of God to be the Saviour of the world, who was the Creator of it!

IV. The infinite complacency which the Father had in him, and he in the Father (v. 30): I was by him, as one brought up with him. As by an eternal generation he was brought forth of the Father, so by an eternal counsel he was brought up with him, which intimates, not only the infinite love of the Father to the Son, who is therefore called the Son of his love (Col. i. 13), but the mutual consciousness and good understanding that were between them concerning the work of man’s redemption, which the Son was to undertake, and about which the counsel of peace was between them both, Zech. vi. 13. He was alumnus patris–the Father’s pupil, as I may say, trained up from eternity for that service which in time, in the fulness of time, he was to go through with, and is therein taken under the special tuition and protection of the Father; he is my servant whom I uphold, Isa. xlii. 1. He did what he saw the Father do (John v. 19), pleased his Father, sought his glory, did according to the commandment he received from his Father, and all this as one brought up with him. He was daily his Father’s delight (my elect, in whom my soul delighteth, says God, Isa. xliii. 1), and he also rejoiced always before him. This may be understood either, 1. Of the infinite delight which the persons of the blessed Trinity have in each other, wherein consists much of the happiness of the divine nature. Or,

2. Of the pleasure which the Father took in the operations of the Son, when he made the world; God saw every thing that the Son made, and, behold, it was very good, it pleased him, and therefore his Son was daily, day by day, during the six days of the creation, upon that account, his delight, Exod. xxxix. 43. And the Son also did himself rejoice before him in the beauty and harmony of the whole creation, Ps. civ. 31. Or,

3. Of the satisfaction they had in each other, with reference to the great work of man’s redemption. The Father delighted in the Son, as Mediator between him and man, was well-pleased with what he proposed (Matt. iii. 17), and therefore loved him because he undertook to lay down his life for the sheep; he put a confidence in him that he would go through his work, and not fail nor fly off. The Son also rejoiced always before him, delighted to do his will (Ps. xl. 8), adhered closely to his undertaking, as one that was well-satisfied in it, and, when it came to the setting to, expressed as much satisfaction in it as ever, saying, Lo, I come, to do as in the volume of the book it is written of me.

V. The gracious concern he had for mankind, v. 31. Wisdom rejoiced, not so much in the rich products of the earth, or the treasures hid in the bowels of it, as in the habitable parts of it, for her delights were with the sons of men; not only in the creation of man is it spoken with a particular air of pleasure (Gen. i. 26), Let us make man, but in the redemption and salvation of man. The Son of God was ordained, before the world, to that great work, 1 Pet. i. 20. A remnant of the sons of men were given him to be brought, through his grace, to his glory, and these were those in whom his delights were. His church was the habitable part of his earth, made habitable for him, that the Lord God might dwell even among those that had been rebellious; and this he rejoiced in, in the prospect of seeing his seed. Though he foresaw all the difficulties he was to meet with in his work, the services and sufferings he was to go through, yet, because it would issue in the glory of his Father and the salvation of those sons of men that were given him, he looked forward upon it with the greatest satisfaction imaginable, in which we have all the encouragement we can desire to come to him and rely upon him for all the benefits designed us by his glorious undertaking.

- Matthew Henry Commentary

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A Chronological History: The New World Order

From Koinonia House

In the mainline media, those who adhere to the position that there is some kind of “conspiracy” pushing us towards a world government are virulently ridiculed. The standard attack maintains that the so-called “New World Order” is the product of turn-of-the-century, right-wing, bigoted, anti-semitic racists acting in the tradition of the long-debunked Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, now promulgated by some Militias and other right-wing hate groups.

The historical record does not support that position to any large degree but it has become the mantra of the socialist left and their cronies, the media.

The term “New World Order” has been used thousands of times in this century by proponents in high places of federalized world government. Some of those involved in this collaboration to achieve world order have been Jewish. The preponderance are not, so it most definitely is not a Jewish agenda.

For years, leaders in education, industry, the media, banking, etc., have promoted those with the same Weltanschauung (world view) as theirs. Of course, someone might say that just because individuals promote their friends doesn’t constitute a conspiracy. That’s true in the usual sense. However, it does represent an “open conspiracy,” as described by noted Fabian Socialist H.G. Wells in The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution (1928).

In 1913, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act President Wilson’s The New Freedom was published, in which he revealed:

“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U. S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

On November 21, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote a letter to Col. Edward Mandell House, President Woodrow Wilson’s close advisor:

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government every since the days of Andrew Jackson…”

That there is such a thing as a cabal of power brokers who control government behind the scenes has been detailed several times in this century by credible sources. Professor Carroll Quigley was Bill Clinton’s mentor at Georgetown University. President Clinton has publicly paid homage to the influence Professor Quigley had on his life. In Quigley’s magnum opus Tragedy and Hope (1966), he states:

“There does exist and has existed for a generation, an international…network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies…but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”

Even talk show host Rush Limbaugh, an outspoken critic of anyone claiming a push for global government, said on his February 7, 1995 program:

“You see, if you amount to anything in Washington these days, it is because you have been plucked or handpicked from an Ivy League school — Harvard, Yale, Kennedy School of Government — you’ve shown an aptitude to be a good Ivy League type, and so you’re plucked so-to-speak, and you are assigned success. You are assigned a certain role in government somewhere, and then your success is monitored and tracked, and you go where the pluckers and the handpickers can put you.”

On May 4, 1993, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) president Leslie Gelb said on The Charlie Rose Show that:

“…you [Charlie Rose] had me on [before] to talk about the New World Order! I talk about it all the time. It’s one world now. The Council [CFR] can find, nurture, and begin to put people in the kinds of jobs this country needs. And that’s going to be one of the major enterprises of the Council under me.”

Previous CFR chairman, John J. McCloy (1953-70), actually said they have been doing this since the 1940s (and before).

The thrust towards global government can be well-documented but at the end of the twentieth century it does not look like a traditional conspiracy in the usual sense of a secret cabal of evil men meeting clandestinely behind closed doors. Rather, it is a “networking” of like-minded individuals in high places to achieve a common goal, as described in Marilyn Ferguson’s 1980 insider classic, The Aquarian Conspiracy.

Perhaps the best way to relate this would be a brief history of the New World Order, not in our words but in the words of those who have been striving to make it real.

1912 — Colonel Edward M. House, a close advisor of President Woodrow Wilson, publishes Phillip Dru: Administrator in which he promotes “socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx.”

1913 — The Federal Reserve (neither federal nor a reserve) is created. It was planned at a secret meeting in 1910 on Jekyl Island, Georgia by a group of bankers and politicians, including Col. House. This transferred the power to create money from the American government to a private group of bankers. It is probably the largest generator of debt in the world.

May 30, 1919 — Prominent British and American personalities establish the Royal Institute of International Affairs in England and the Institute of International Affairs in the U.S. at a meeting arranged by Col. House attended by various Fabian socialists, including noted economist John Maynard Keynes. Two years later, Col. House reorganizes the Institute of International Affairs into the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

December 15, 1922 — The CFR endorses World Government in its magazine Foreign Affairs. Author Philip Kerr, states:

“Obviously there is going to be no peace or prosperity for mankind as long as [the earth] remains divided into 50 or 60 independent states until some kind of international system is created…The real problem today is that of the world government.”

1928 — The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution by H.G. Well is published. A former Fabian Socialist, Wells writes:

“The political world of the into a Open Conspiracy must weaken, efface, incorporate and supersede existing governments…The Open Conspiracy is the natural inheritor of socialist and communist enthusiasms; it may be in control of Moscow before it is in control of New York…The character of the Open Conspiracy will now be plainly displayed…It will be a world religion.”

1931 — Students at the Lenin School of Political Warfare in Moscow are taught:

“One day we shall start to spread the most theatrical peace movement the world has ever seen. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent…will fall into the trap offered by the possibility of making new friends. Our day will come in 30 years or so…The bourgeoisie must be lulled into a false sense of security.

1932 — New books are published urging World Order:

Toward Soviet America by William Z. Foster. Head of the Communist Party USA, Foster indicates that a National Department of Education would be one of the means used to develop a new socialist society in the U.S.

The New World Order by F.S. Marvin, describing the League of Nations as the first attempt at a New World Order. Marvin says, “nationality must rank below the claims of mankind as a whole.”

Dare the School Build a New Social Order? is published. Educator author George Counts asserts that:

“…the teachers should deliberately reach for power and then make the most of their conquest” in order to “influence the social attitudes, ideals and behavior of the coming generation…The growth of science and technology has carried us into a new age where ignorance must be replaced by knowledge, competition by cooperation, trust in Providence by careful planning and private capitalism by some form of social economy.”

1933 — The first Humanist Manifesto is published. Co-author John Dewey, the noted philosopher and educator, calls for a synthesizing of all religions and “a socialized and cooperative economic order.”

Co-signer C.F. Potter said in 1930:

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?

1933 — The Shape of Things to Come by H.G. Wells is published. Wells predicts a second world war around 1940, originating from a German-Polish dispute. After 1945 there would be an increasing lack of public safety in “criminally infected” areas. The plan for the “Modern World-State” would succeed on its third attempt (about 1980), and come out of something that occurred in Basra, Iraq.

The book also states,

“Although world government had been plainly coming for some years, although it had been endlessly feared and murmured against, it found no opposition prepared anywhere.”

1934 — The Externalization of the Hierarchy by Alice A. Bailey is published. Bailey is an occultist, whose works are channeled from a spirit guide, the Tibetan Master [demon spirit] Djwahl Kuhl. Bailey uses the phrase “points of light” in connection with a “New Group of World Servers” and claims that 1934 marks the beginning of “the organizing of the men and women…group work of a new order…[with] progress defined by service…the world of the Brotherhood…the Forces of Light…[and] out of the spoliation of all existing culture and civilization, the new world order must be built.”

The book is published by the Lucis Trust, incorporated originally in New York as the Lucifer Publishing Company. Lucis Trust is a United Nations NGO and has been a major player at the recent U.N. summits. Later Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. Robert Mueller would credit the creation of his World Core Curriculum for education to the underlying teachings of Djwahl Kuhl via Alice Bailey’s writings on the subject.

1932 — Plan for Peace by American Birth Control League founder Margaret Sanger (1921) is published. She calls for coercive sterilization, mandatory segregation, and rehabilitative concentration camps for all “dysgenic stocks” including Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Catholics.

October 28, 1939 — In an address by John Foster Dulles, later U.S. Secretary of State, he proposes that America lead the transition to a new order of less independent, semi-sovereign states bound together by a league or federal union.

1939 — New World Order by H. G. Wells proposes a collectivist one-world state”‘ or “new world order” comprised of “socialist democracies.” He advocates “universal conscription for service” and declares that “nationalist individualism…is the world’s disease.” He continues:

“The manifest necessity for some collective world control to eliminate warfare and the less generally admitted necessity for a collective control of the economic and biological life of mankind, are aspects of one and the same process.” He proposes that this be accomplished through “universal law” and propaganda (or education).”

1940 — The New World Order is published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and contains a select list of references on regional and world federation, together with some special plans for world order after the war.

December 12, 1940 — In The Congressional Record an article entitled A New World Order John G. Alexander calls for a world federation.

1942 — The leftist Institute of Pacific Relations publishes Post War Worlds by P.E. Corbett:

“World government is the ultimate aim…It must be recognized that the law of nations takes precedence over national law…The process will have to be assisted by the deletion of the nationalistic material employed in educational textbooks and its replacement by material explaining the benefits of wiser association.”

June 28, 1945 — President Truman endorses world government in a speech:

“It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for us to get along in a republic of the United States.”

October 24, 1945 — The United Nations Charter becomes effective. Also on October 24, Senator Glen Taylor (D-Idaho) introduces Senate Resolution 183 calling upon the U.S. Senate to go on record as favoring creation of a world republic including an international police force.

1946 — Alger Hiss is elected President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hiss holds this office until 1949. Early in 1950, he is convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison after a sensational trial and Congressional hearing in which Whittaker Chambers, a former senior editor of Time, testifies that Hiss was a member of his Communist Party cell.

1946 — The Teacher and World Government by former editor of the NEA Journal (National Education Association) Joy Elmer Morgan is published. He says:

“In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher…can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation…At the very heart of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession.”

1947 — The American Education Fellowship, formerly the Progressive Education Association, organized by John Dewey, calls for the:

“…establishment of a genuine world order, an order in which national sovereignty is subordinate to world authority…”

October, 1947 — NEA Associate Secretary William Carr writes in the NEA Journal that teachers should:

“…teach about the various proposals that have been made for the strengthening of the United Nations and the establishment of a world citizenship and world government.”

1948 — Walden II by behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner proposes “a perfect society or new and more perfect order” in which children are reared by the State, rather than by their parents and are trained from birth to demonstrate only desirable behavior and characteristics. Skinner’s ideas would be widely implemented by educators in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s as Values Clarification and Outcome Based Education.

July, 1948 — Britain’s Sir Harold Butler, in the CFR’s Foreign Affairs, sees “a New World Order” taking shape:

“How far can the life of nations, which for centuries have thought of themselves as distinct and unique, be merged with the life of other nations? How far are they prepared to sacrifice a part of their sovereignty without which there can be no effective economic or political union?…Out of the prevailing confusion a new world is taking shape… which may point the way toward the new order…That will be the beginning of a real United Nations, no longer crippled by a split personality, but held together by a common faith.”

1948 — UNESCO president and Fabian Socialist, Sir Julian Huxley, calls for a radical eugenic policy in UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy. He states:

“Thus, even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy of controlled human breeding will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake that much that is now unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”

1948 — The preliminary draft of a World Constitution is published by U.S. educators advocating regional federation on the way toward world federation or government with England incorporated into a European federation.

The Constitution provides for a “World Council” along with a “Chamber of Guardians” to enforce world law. Also included is a “Preamble” calling upon nations to surrender their arms to the world government, and includes the right of this “Federal Republic of the World” to seize private property for federal use.

February 9, 1950 — The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee introduces Senate Concurrent Resolution 66 which begins:

“Whereas, in order to achieve universal peace and justice, the present Charter of the United Nations should be changed to provide a true world government constitution.”

The resolution was first introduced in the Senate on September 13, 1949 by Senator Glen Taylor (D-Idaho). Senator Alexander Wiley (R-Wisconsin) called it “a consummation devoutly to be wished for” and said, “I understand your proposition is either change the United Nations, or change or create, by a separate convention, a world order.” Senator Taylor later stated:

“We would have to sacrifice considerable sovereignty to the world organization to enable them to levy taxes in their own right to support themselves.”

April 12, 1952 — John Foster Dulles, later to become Secretary of State, says in a speech to the American Bar Association in Louisville, Kentucky, that “treaty laws can override the Constitution.” He says treaties can take power away from Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the States and give them to the Federal Government or to some international body and they can cut across the rights given to the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.

A Senate amendment, proposed by GOP Senator John Bricker, would have provided that no treaty could supersede the Constitution, but it fails to pass by one vote.

1954 — Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands establishes the Bilderbergers, international politicians and bankers who meet secretly on an annual basis.

1958 — World Peace through World Law is published, where authors Grenville Clark and Louis Sohn advocate using the U.N. as a governing body for the world, world disarmament, a world police force and legislature.

1959 — The Council on Foreign Relations calls for a New International Order. Study Number 7, issued on November 25, advocated:

“…new international order [which] must be responsive to world aspirations for peace, for social and economic change…an international order…including states labeling themselves as ‘socialist’ [communist].”

1959 — The World Constitution and Parliament Association is founded which later develops a Diagram of World Government under the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

1959 — The Mid-Century Challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy is published, sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund. It explains that the U.S.:

“…cannot escape, and indeed should welcome…the task which history has imposed on us. This is the task of helping to shape a new world order in all its dimensions — spiritual, economic, political, social.”

September 9, 1960 — President Eisenhower signs Senate Joint Resolution 170, promoting the concept of a federal Atlantic Union. Pollster and Atlantic Union Committee treasurer, Elmo Roper, later delivers an address titled, The Goal Is Government of All the World, in which he states:

“For it becomes clear that the first step toward World Government cannot be completed until we have advanced on the four fronts: the economic, the military, the political and the social.”

1961 — The U.S. State Department issues a plan to disarm all nations and arm the United Nations. State Department Document Number 7277 is entitled Freedom From War: The U.S. Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World. It details a three-stage plan to disarm all nations and arm the U.N. with the final stage in which “no state would have the military power to challenge the progressively strengthened U.N. Peace Force.”

1962 — New Calls for World Federalism. In a study titled, A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations, CFR member Lincoln Bloomfield states:

“…if the communist dynamic was greatly abated, the West might lose whatever incentive it has for world government.”

The Future of Federalism by author Nelson Rockefeller is published. The one-time Governor of New York, claims that current events compellingly demand a “new world order,” as the old order is crumbling, and there is “a new and free order struggling to be born.” Rockefeller says there is:

“a fever of nationalism…[but] the nation-state is becoming less and less competent to perform its international political tasks….These are some of the reasons pressing us to lead vigorously toward the true building of a new world order…[with] voluntary service…and our dedicated faith in the brotherhood of all mankind….Sooner perhaps than we may realize…there will evolve the bases for a federal structure of the free world.”

1963 — J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee speaks at a symposium sponsored by the Fund for the Republic, a left-wing project of the Ford Foundation:

“The case for government by elites is irrefutable…government by the people is possible but highly improbable.”

1964 — Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II is published. Author Benjamin Bloom states:

“…a large part of what we call ‘good teaching’ is the teacher’s ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students’ fixed beliefs.”

His Outcome-Based Education (OBE) method of teaching would first be tried as Mastery Learning in Chicago schools. After five years, Chicago students’ test scores had plummeted causing outrage among parents. OBE would leave a trail of wreckage wherever it would be tried and under whatever name it would be used. At the same time, it would become crucial to globalists for overhauling the education system to promote attitude changes among school students.

1964 — Visions of Order by Richard Weaver is published. He describes:

“progressive educators as a ‘revolutionary cabal’ engaged in ‘a systematic attempt to undermine society’s traditions and beliefs.’”

1967 — Richard Nixon calls for New World Order. In Asia after Vietnam, in the October issue of Foreign Affairs, Nixon writes of nations’ dispositions to evolve regional approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a “new world order.”

1968 — Joy Elmer Morgan, former editor of the NEA Journal publishes The American Citizens Handbook in which he says:

“the coming of the United Nations and the urgent necessity that it evolve into a more comprehensive form of world government places upon the citizens of the United States an increased obligation to make the most of their citizenship which now widens into active world citizenship.”

July 26, 1968 — Nelson Rockefeller pledges support of the New World Order. In an Associated Press report, Rockefeller pledges that, “as President, he would work toward international creation of a new world order.”

1970 — Education and the mass media promote world order. In Thinking About A New World Order for the Decade 1990, author Ian Baldwin, Jr. asserts that:

“…the World Law Fund has begun a worldwide research and educational program that will introduce a new, emerging discipline — world order — into educational curricula throughout the world…and to concentrate some of its energies on bringing basic world order concepts into the mass media again on a worldwide level.”

1972 — President Nixon visits China. In his toast to Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, former CFR member and now President, Richard Nixon, expresses “the hope that each of us has to build a new world order.”

May 18, 1972 — In speaking of the coming of world government, Roy M. Ash, director of the Office of Management and Budget, declares that:

“within two decades the institutional framework for a world economic community will be in place…[and] aspects of individual sovereignty will be given over to a supernational authority.”

1973 — The Trilateral Commission is established. Banker David Rockefeller organizes this new private body and chooses Zbigniew Brzezinski, later National Security Advisor to President Carter, as the Commission’s first director and invites Jimmy Carter to become a founding member.

1973 — Humanist Manifesto II is published:

“The next century can be and should be the humanistic century…we stand at the dawn of a new age…a secular society on a planetary scale….As non-theists we begin with humans not God, nature not deity…we deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds….Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government….The true revolution is occurring.”

April, 1974 — Former U. S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Trilateralist and CFR member Richard Gardner’s article The Hard Road to World Order is published in the CFR’s Foreign Affairs where he states that:

“the ‘house of world order’ will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down…but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.”

1974 — The World Conference of Religion for Peace, held in Louvain, Belgium is held. Douglas Roche presents a report entitled We Can Achieve a New World Order.

The U.N. calls for wealth redistribution: In a report entitled New International Economic Order, the U.N. General Assembly outlines a plan to redistribute the wealth from the rich to the poor nations.

1975 — A study titled, A New World Order, is published by the Center of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Studies, Princeton University.

1975 — In Congress, 32 Senators and 92 Representatives sign A Declaration of Interdependence, written by historian Henry Steele Commager. The Declaration states that:

“we must join with others to bring forth a new world order…Narrow notions of national sovereignty must not be permitted to curtail that obligation.”

Congresswoman Marjorie Holt refuses to sign the Declaration saying:

“It calls for the surrender of our national sovereignty to international organizations. It declares that our economy should be regulated by international authorities. It proposes that we enter a ‘new world order’ that would redistribute the wealth created by the American people.”

1975 — Retired Navy Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy and former CFR member, writes in a critique that the goal of the CFR is the “submergence of U. S. sovereignty and national independence into an all powerful one-world government…”

1975 — Kissinger on the Couch is published. Authors Phyllis Schlafly and former CFR member Chester Ward state:

“Once the ruling members of the CFR have decided that the U.S. government should espouse a particular policy, the very substantial research facilities of the CFR are put to work to develop arguments, intellectual and emotional, to support the new policy and to confound, discredit, intellectually and politically, any opposition…”

1976 — RIO: Reshaping the International Order is published by the globalist Club of Rome, calling for a new international order, including an economic redistribution of wealth.

1977 — The Third Try at World Order is published. Author Harlan Cleveland of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies calls for:

“changing Americans’ attitudes and institutions” for “complete disarmament (except for international soldiers)” and “for individual entitlement to food, health and education.”

1977 — Imperial Brain Trust by Laurence Shoup and William Minter is published. The book takes a critical look at the Council on Foreign Relations with chapters such as: Shaping a New World Order: The Council’s Blueprint for Global Hegemony, 1939-1944 and Toward the 1980′s: The Council’s Plans for a New World Order.

1977 — The Trilateral Connection appears in the July edition of Atlantic Monthly. Written by Jeremiah Novak, it says:

“For the third time in this century, a group of American schools, businessmen, and government officials is planning to fashion a New World Order…”

1977 — Leading educator Mortimer Adler publishes Philosopher at Large in which he says:

“…if local civil government is necessary for local civil peace, then world civil government is necessary for world peace.”

1979 — Barry Goldwater, retiring Republican Senator from Arizona, publishes his autobiography With No Apologies. He writes:

“In my view The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power — political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community. What the Trilateralists truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. They believe the abundant materialism they propose to create will overwhelm existing differences. As managers and creators of the system they will rule the future.”

1984 — The Power to Lead is published. Author James McGregor Burns admits:

“The framers of the U.S. constitution have simply been too shrewd for us. The have outwitted us. They designed separate institutions that cannot be unified by mechanical linkages, frail bridges, tinkering. If we are to ‘turn the Founders upside down’ — we must directly confront the constitutional structure they erected.”

1985 — Norman Cousins, the honorary chairman of Planetary Citizens for the World We Chose, is quoted in Human Events:

“World government is coming, in fact, it is inevitable. No arguments for or against it can change that fact.”

Cousins was also president of the World Federalist Association, an affiliate of the World Association for World Federation (WAWF), headquartered in Amsterdam. WAWF is a leading force for world federal government and is accredited by the U.N. as a Non-Governmental Organization.

1987 — The Secret Constitution and the Need for Constitutional Change is sponsored in part by the Rockefeller Foundation. Some thoughts of author Arthur S. Miller are:

“…a pervasive system of thought control exists in the United States…the citizenry is indoctrinated by employment of the mass media and the system of public education…people are told what to think about…the old order is crumbling…Nationalism should be seen as a dangerous social disease…A new vision is required to plan and manage the future, a global vision that will transcend national boundaries and eliminate the poison of nationalistic solutions…a new Constitution is necessary.”

1988 — Former Under-secretary of State and CFR member George Ball in a January 24 interview in the New York Times says:

“The Cold War should no longer be the kind of obsessive concern that it is. Neither side is going to attack the other deliberately…If we could internationalize by using the U.N. in conjunction with the Soviet Union, because we now no longer have to fear, in most cases, a Soviet veto, then we could begin to transform the shape of the world and might get the U.N. back to doing something useful…Sooner or later we are going to have to face restructuring our institutions so that they are not confined merely to the nation-states. Start first on a regional and ultimately you could move to a world basis.”

December 7, 1988 — In an address to the U.N., Mikhail Gorbachev calls for mutual consensus:

“World progress is only possible through a search for universal human consensus as we move forward to a new world order.”

May 12, 1989 –President Bush invites the Soviets to join World Order. Speaking to the graduating class at Texas A&M University, Mr. Bush states that the United States is ready to welcome the Soviet Union “back into the world order.”

1989 — Carl Bernstein’s (Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate fame) book Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir is published. His father and mother had been members of the Communist party. Bernstein’s father tells his son about the book:

“You’re going to prove [Sen. Joseph] McCarthy was right, because all he was saying is that the system was loaded with Communists. And he was right…I’m worried about the kind of book you’re going to write and about cleaning up McCarthy. The problem is that everybody said he was a liar; you’re saying he was right…I agree that the Party was a force in the country.”

1990 — The World Federalist Association faults the American press. Writing in their Summer/Fall newsletter, Deputy Director Eric Cox describes world events over the past year or two and declares:

“It’s sad but true that the slow-witted American press has not grasped the significance of most of these developments. But most federalists know what is happening…And they are not frightened by the old bug-a-boo of sovereignty.”

September 11, 1990 — President Bush calls the Gulf War an opportunity for the New World Order. In an address to Congress entitled Toward a New World Order, Mr. Bush says:

“The crisis in the Persian Gulf offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times…a new world order can emerge in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony….Today the new world is struggling to be born.”

September 25, 1990 — In an address to the U.N., Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze describes Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait as “an act of terrorism [that] has been perpetrated against the emerging New World Order.” On December 31, Gorbachev declares that the New World Order would be ushered in by the Gulf Crisis.

October 1, 1990 — In a U.N. address, President Bush speaks of the:

“…collective strength of the world community expressed by the U.N…an historic movement towards a new world order…a new partnership of nations…a time when humankind came into its own…to bring about a revolution of the spirit and the mind and begin a journey into a…new age.”

1991 — Author Linda MacRae-Campbell publishes How to Start a Revolution at Your School in In Context. She promotes the use of “change agents” as “self-acknowledged revolutionaries” and “co-conspirators.”

1991 — President Bush praises the New World Order in a State of Union Message:

“What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea — a new world order…to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind…based on shared principles and the rule of law….The illumination of a thousand points of light….The winds of change are with us now.”

February 6, 1991 — President Bush tells the Economic Club of New York:

“My vision of a new world order foresees a United Nations with a revitalized peacekeeping function.”

June, 1991 — The Council on Foreign Relations co-sponsors an assembly Rethinking America’s Security: Beyond Cold War to New World Order which is attended by 65 prestigious members of government, labor, academia, the media, military, and the professions from nine countries. Later, several of the conference participants joined some 100 other world leaders for another closed door meeting of the Bilderberg Society in Baden Baden, Germany. The Bilderbergers also exert considerable clout in determining the foreign policies of their respective governments.

July, 1991 — The Southeastern World Affairs Institute discusses the New World Order. In a program, topics include, Legal Structures for a New World Order and The United Nations: From its Conception to a New World Order. Participants include a former director of the U.N.’s General Legal Division, and a former Secretary General of International Planned Parenthood.

Late July, 1991 — On a Cable News Network program, CFR member and former CIA director Stansfield Turner (Rhodes scholar), when asked about Iraq, responded:

“We have a much bigger objective. We’ve got to look at the long run here. This is an example — the situation between the United Nations and Iraq — where the United Nations is deliberately intruding into the sovereignty of a sovereign nation…Now this is a marvelous precedent (to be used in) all countries of the world…”

October 29, 1991 — David Funderburk, former U. S. Ambassador to Romania, tells a North Carolina audience:

“George Bush has been surrounding himself with people who believe in one-world government. They believe that the Soviet system and the American system are converging.”

The vehicle to bring this about, said Funderburk, is the United Nations, “the majority of whose 166 member states are socialist, atheist, and anti-American.” Funderburk served as ambassador in Bucharest from 1981 to 1985, when he resigned in frustration over U.S. support of the oppressive regime of the late Rumanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu.

October 30, 1991: — President Gorbachev at the Middle East Peace Talks in Madrid states:

“We are beginning to see practical support. And this is a very significant sign of the movement towards a new era, a new age…We see both in our country and elsewhere…ghosts of the old thinking…When we rid ourselves of their presence, we will be better able to move toward a new world order…relying on the relevant mechanisms of the United Nations.”

Elsewhere, in Alexandria, Virginia, Elena Lenskaya, Counsellor to the Minister of Education of Russia, delivers the keynote address for a program titled, Education for a New World Order.

1992 — The Twilight of Sovereignty by CFR member (and former Citicorp Chairman) Walter Wriston is published, in which he claims:

“A truly global economy will require …compromises of national sovereignty…There is no escaping the system.”

1992 — The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Earth Summit takes place in Rio de Janeiro this year, headed by Conference Secretary-General Maurice Strong. The main products of this summit are the Biodiversity Treaty and Agenda 21, which the U.S. hesitates to sign because of opposition at home due to the threat to sovereignty and economics. The summit says the first world’s wealth must be transferred to the third world.

July 20, 1992 — TIME magazine publishes The Birth of the Global Nation by Strobe Talbott, Rhodes Scholar, roommate of Bill Clinton at Oxford University, CFR Director, and Trilateralist, in which he writes:

“All countries are basically social arrangements…No matter how permanent or even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary…Perhaps national sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all…But it has taken the events in our own wondrous and terrible century to clinch the case for world government.”

As an editor of Time, Talbott defended Clinton during his presidential campaign. He was appointed by President Clinton as the number two person at the State Department behind Secretary of State Warren Christopher, former Trilateralist and former CFR Vice-Chairman and Director. Talbott was confirmed by about two-thirds of the U.S. Senate despite his statement about the unimportance of national sovereignty.

September 29, 1992 — At a town hall meeting in Los Angeles, Trilateralist and former CFR president Winston Lord delivers a speech titled Changing Our Ways: America and the New World, in which he remarks:

“To a certain extent, we are going to have to yield some of our sovereignty, which will be controversial at home…[Under] the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)…some Americans are going to be hurt as low-wage jobs are taken away.”

Lord became an Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration.

Winter, 1992-93 — The CFR’s Foreign Affairs publishes Empowering the United Nations by U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali, who asserts:

“It is undeniable that the centuries-old doctrine of absolute and exclusive sovereignty no longer stands…Underlying the rights of the individual and the rights of peoples is a dimension of universal sovereignty that resides in all humanity…It is a sense that increasingly finds expression in the gradual expansion of international law…In this setting the significance of the United Nations should be evident and accepted.”

1993 — Strobe Talbott receives the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award for his 1992 TIME article, The Birth of the Global Nation and in appreciation for what he has done “for the cause of global governance.” President Clinton writes a letter of congratulation which states:

“Norman Cousins worked for world peace and world government…Strobe Talbott’s lifetime achievements as a voice for global harmony have earned him this recognition…He will be a worthy recipient of the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award. Best wishes…for future success.”

Not only does President Clinton use the specific term, “world government,” but he also expressly wishes the WFA “future success” in pursuing world federal government. Talbott proudly accepts the award, but says the WFA should have given it to the other nominee, Mikhail Gorbachev.

July 18, 1993 — CFR member and Trilateralist Henry Kissinger writes in the Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA:

“What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system…a first step toward a new world order.”

August 23, 1993 — Christopher Hitchens, Socialist friend of Bill Clinton when he was at Oxford University, says in a C-Span interview:

“…it is, of course the case that there is a ruling class in this country, and that it has allies internationally.”

October 30, 1993 — Washington Post ombudsman Richard Harwood does an op-ed piece about the role of the CFR’s media members:

“Their membership is an acknowledgment of their ascension into the American ruling class [where] they do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it.”

January/February, 1994 — The CFR’s Foreign Affairs prints an opening article by CFR Senior Fellow Michael Clough in which he writes that the “Wise Men” (e.g. Paul Nitze, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, and John J. McCloy) have:

“assiduously guarded it [American foreign policy] for the past 50 years…They ascended to power during World War II…This was as it should be. National security and the national interest, they argued must transcend the special interests and passions of the people who make up America…How was this small band of Atlantic-minded internationalists able to triumph?…Eastern internationalists were able to shape and staff the burgeoning foreign policy institutions…As long as the Cold War endured and nuclear Armageddon seemed only a missile away, the public was willing to tolerate such an undemocratic foreign policy making system.”

1995 — The State of the World Forum took place in the fall of this year, sponsored by the Gorbachev Foundation located at the Presidio in San Francisco. Foundation President Jim Garrison chairs the meeting of who’s-whos from around the world including Margaret Thatcher, Maurice Strong, George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev and others. Conversation centers around the oneness of mankind and the coming global government. However, the term “global governance” is now used in place of “new world order” since the latter has become a political liability, being a lightning rod for opponents of global government.

1996 — The United Nations 420-page report Our Global Neighborhood is published. It outlines a plan for “global governance,” calling for an international Conference on Global Governance in 1998 for the purpose of submitting to the world the necessary treaties and agreements for ratification by the year 2000.

1996 — State of the World Forum II will take place again this fall in San Francisco. This time, many of the sessions are closed to the press.

There are hundreds more articles and speeches by those actively working to make global government a reality. We could not fit them all in here.

Click for more information – Audio Cassette

The New World Order – Chuck Missler and Dr. Dennis CuddyIs the New World Order the product of conspiracy kooks? Is there really a major movement toward global government? Is the sovereign nation-state obsolete?

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Paradigms, Preaching and Politics: Worldview Wars

From Koinonia House

Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism.  What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?

-1933, Charles Francis Potter, Humanism, A New Religion ¹

Kaboom! A rousing first shot across the bow had been fired. Humanists declared their intention of transforming western culture and moving it from its Christian base into the enlightened religion of humanism. In 1933, when Humanist Manifesto I appeared, its co-author John Dewey was made honorary president of the National Education Association (US). The manifesto itself stated that:

There is no God and no soul. Hence there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or permanent moral absolutes. ²

In his book, A Common Faith, Dewey went on to say:

It is impossible to ignore the fact that historic Christianity has been committed to a separation of sheep and goats; the saved and the lost…I cannot understand how any realization of the democratic ideal as a vital moral and spiritual ideal in human affairs is possible without surrender of the conception of the basic division to which supernatural Christianity is committed . ³

In the early days of the Worldview Wars, humanists referred to their belief system as a “religion.” That was until it became more advantageous to clamor about the “separation of church and state” in attempting to eject the Christian opposition from the marketplace of ideas. Suddenly humanism became de-religionized and rebaptized itself as secular science or philosophy. A dichotomous wedge was driven between faith and fact. Today, echoes of that shift are heard in the debates on evolution, when someone asserts that “this is science, that is faith” rather than the previously accepted idea that all are searching for truth.

In the early part of the battle, humanists did not meet a lot of resistance, since Christians for the most part remained oblivious to the fact that there even was a battle or that spiritual battles play out in the physical arena. As a group, Christians were more than happy to walk off the battlefield in the name of “just teaching the Bible” or doing the “work of the Kingdom,” as if there would be no moral consequences to their dereliction of duty. The consequences, however, have been staggering – from abortion to the loss of faith in millions of children.

So humanists, meeting little organized opposition, quietly plodded onward toward their stated goal of transforming the worldview of western society, especially the field of education, where more and more like-minded future educators could be trained to indoctrinate new generations of students into the humanist worldview, while using government handouts – grants and subsidies – to do it. In 1932, William Z. Foster, head of the Communist Party USA, published a book entitled Toward Soviet America , where he predicted that:

Class ideologies of the past will give place to scientific materialist philosophy. Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are the following: the schools, colleges and universities will be coordinated and grouped under the National Department of Education and its state and local branches. The studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic and other features of the bourgeoisie ideology. The students will be taught on the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism [now the absolute basis of consensus use in all government procedures], internationalism [today called "globalism"] and the general ethics of the new socialist society [which virtually all English-speaking countries have become]…Freedom will be established for anti-religious propaganda…Science will become materialistic…God will be banished from the laboratories as well as from the schools. ⁴

Were he not probably occupying a place in the hell he didn’t believe existed, Mr. Foster would be delighted that the humanist heirs of John Dewey had accomplished everything he wished to see. Indeed, the Communists endorsed the humanist enterprise because they believed in their common aspirations of a godless, socialist society ruled by the dialectical process of relative truths.⁵

By mid-century, humanists had gained a chokehold on most institutions of higher learning. By 1938, the New York Herald Tribune reported a speech by Dr. Goodwin Watson, professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he “begged the teachers of the Nation to use their profession to indoctrinate children to overthrow ‘conservative reactionaries’ directing American government and industry.”⁶ In his 1951 book, God and Man at Yale , William F. Buckley, Jr. commented that:

The teachings of John Dewey and his predecessors have borne fruit. And there is surely not a department at Yale that is uncontaminated with the absolute that there are no absolutes, on intrinsic rights, no ultimate truths. The acceptance of these notions, which emerge in courses in history and economics, in sociology and political science, in psychology and literature, make impossible an intelligible conception of an omnipotent, purposeful, and benign Supreme Being, who has laid down immutable laws, endowed his creatures with inalienable rights, and posited unchangeable rules of human conduct .⁷

The battle internationalized by means of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. That is why the curricula and worldview battles are essentially the same in all English-language countries. The departments of education in the various countries collaborate openly with UNESCO and its goals for a “new educational order…based on scientific and technological training, one of the essential components of scientific humanism… Relativity and dialectical thought would appear to be a fertile ground in which to cultivate the seeds of tolerance… an individual should avoid systematically setting up his beliefs… as a model of rules valid for all times.” ⁸

And what of the Church during this time? There were a limited number of Protestant and Catholic voices fighting the war, but generally the Church droned on mechanically with its disconnected Biblical or catechistic studies as the humanist juggernaut rolled forward. History was rewritten and Christian contributions to history, especially freedom and self rule, were eliminated or denigrated. Other events were rewritten and Christian or other religious ideas were ridiculed and banned. Patriotism was banned. Marxist, socialist, and humanist ideas took solid root as Christianity was chased out of the marketplace of ideas with little resistance. Christian morals were publicly denigrated and rejected. The Church seemed oblivious that this radical change in public education was putting the faith of millions of its youth in dire peril. “Let’s just have another Bible study” was the cry.

The second half of the 20th century bore witness to the danger, as humanism took over the major organs of education, media and politics, and the youth began to fall away from even Bible-believing churches in droves after receiving years of humanist indoctrination in government schools. Those who remained, while not totally abandoning their faith, began to have a belief system which was an admixture of conflicting worldviews.

Absolute truth was replaced by relative truth. Indeed, the belief in no absolutes has remained the greatest challenge to faith because it totally undermines any basis for belief in a God, His Word, His Law or His salvation. As a matter of fact, if there are no absolutes, how can we know anything absolutely? How is it possible to even say absolutely there are no absolutes if nothing can be known absolutely? It’s an absurdity. Nevertheless, millions of Christians have adopted this into their belief systems.

New voices, like Dr. Francis Schaeffer, sounded the alarm and took up the banner but few took up the fight. Even today, few youth pastors have read Schaeffer or understand the nature of the battle in which they are engaged. Indeed, they are facing the challenge that today’s students do not believe in absolute fact and consider it arrogant that anyone should claim to have an absolute truth. Unfortunately, they don’t see the contradiction when they state that absolutely. Nevertheless, this belief alone makes evangelism difficult, because the worldview basis for discussion between Christians and non-believers has become so wide that bridging it is difficult.

The most urgent call for an attitude change in youth pastoring today is to begin training church youth to grapple with the worldviews, which they will encounter in schools and colleges, and to have a strong countering response using the Christian worldview. A number of ministries are attempting to achieve this, but until it becomes a top priority for all churches, several things will happen:

1) The Church will continue to lose large numbers of youth to other worldviews, despite all the Biblical training. Bible study must stop being taught in a vacuum and begin to have a functional objective in the world. This includes the basis for belief, the basis for believing why God’s Word is His Word, etc.

2) Churches themselves will continue to grow in numbers but decline in believers because those churches will have adopted the prevailing worldviews, while calling it Christianity. As Francis Schaeffer predicted, many churches are beginning to look more and more like the world because they are unable to stand against the humanistic spirit of the age. Already many mainline churches have been knocked totally off a Biblical base and have wholeheartedly adopted the new humanist worldview while retaining only a patina of Christian language and belief in God. Their worldview systems are amalgams of atheism and Christianity, similar to some of the heresies the Church experienced in its infancy.

3) Because of having allowed itself to be chased out of the political arena in the name of separation of church and state or the “work of the Kingdom,” the Church will find a new challenge from a totally “atheized” secular government, which is now poised to begin telling the Church what it will say and do and what it must not say and do; what it can believe and what it cannot believe. Moreover, the governments of the West will continue their deterioration towards increased authoritarianism as the chaos caused by the new relative values continues to unravel the bonds that held society together under the Christian paradigm.

We are simply following in the footsteps of those countries of the past, which embraced the humanist, socialist worldview; from Rousseau and the French Revolution to the Bolsheviks in Russia, to Nazi Germany, to Chairman Mao, to Castro’s Cuba. In each case, the holders of the new worldview knew they had to co-opt or defeat the Church in order to put their value system in place in the hearts and minds of the people, especially the children. Typically, the churches of those countries never saw it coming and in many cases actually participated in their own demise. In essence, been there, done that – but few of the churches see the oncoming danger.

There is still time to meet the challenge in the West, but the window is closing rapidly. One thing is certain: western Christians in the first half of the 21st century will increasingly face a brave new world of unexpected pressures on their faith, mainly as a result of having abandoned the field of battle in education and politics almost 50 years ago. They are still having trouble remembering that the practice of one’s faith is a battle, not a picnic.

Worldview Wars – 4 Audio Tape Set – John LoefflerThe religion of humanism has been rebaptized in our society as ‘secular’ science or philosophy. This teaching exposes the campaign to eliminate the reality of God and Truth from our lives. Click for more information – Audio Cassette

1. Excerpted from the original by Dr. Dennis Cuddy, Ph.D., A Chronology of Education in Quotable Quotes.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. The dialectical process assumes there are no absolute truths but that new truths are constantly being formed out of competing previous truths. The cycle begins with a thesis (an assumed truth) which has a challenger (an antithesis). After a while as they clash in the marketplace of ideas and morals, the two competing truths merge into a new truth (the synthesis). This synthesis forms the basis for a new thesis, which will be challenged by a new antithesis, ad infinitum.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

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What’s Really Going On? The Antichrist Doesn’t Wear Tights. Part 2

From Koinonia House

What’s Really Going On? The Antichrist Doesn’t Wear Tights by John Loeffler World Affairs Editor

[This is Part 2 of a three-part series on the direction the West is heading and what this will mean to the Christian church.]

Recently the Christian world has been impacted by a rash of end-times novels and movies offering the same recipe:

1) The world is in a political and economic crisis; woe is us!

2) The Middle East is in conflict.

3) Suddenly all sorts of people are “rap-zapped” and disappear.

4) Kapoof! Mr. AC himself appears on the scene, dressed in red Spandex tights with horns and a tail, as obvious as a Christmas cracker. Well, I guess he wears an expensive three-piece suit instead of the tights, but you just know he’s got them on underneath.

Mr. AC persecutes post rap-zap believers and requires everyone to get their hand stamped so they can get into Globaland. Finally he proposes his great cure for the world’s ills, which – for reasons totally obscure to a thinking mind – are accepted universally without a moment’s critical thought by anyone.

There’s just one problem with this starched scenario: it lacks subtlety. The Antichrist doesn’t wear tights and, traditionally, evil is far more clever and subtle than that. So much so that in the last century whenever it befell a church, the church never saw it coming, even though the clues were always there for anyone who cared to look.

No “world citizen” would ever buy into the things Revelation says will happen without being psychologically prepped for it ahead of time. Perhaps the greatest fallacy of popular “rapture reasoning” is that the Western church will be “out of here” before anything bad befalls it, and this philosophy has become a paralyzing narcotic in the face of rapidly encroaching danger.

Magnum Opus Malum¹Right now, Christians are witnessing a tremendous change in Western culture and belief, which is a harbinger of very troubled times to come. The battle for the West began in the wee years of the 20th century, when humanism seized control of academia and declared its goal of dethroning Christianity as the core Western belief system (see our articles in Personal UPDATE, March 1997 and September 2001 for background information).

The process continues today as atheistic humanism yields to global socialistic pantheism.² The changes began first among philosophers and academics, moving into the arts, then into common culture and, finally, as the new disciples came of age, into the legal and political system. Now we are seeing the total conversion of Western society and a march towards a great utopian vision of global governance controlled by socialism. In reality, we are embracing ideas of the past which have resulted in much bloodshed and destruction of civilizations.

The Great Prepping AwayFor the past 50 years, the West has been slowly unfrozen from its traditional belief systems and tricked into accepting a new belief system, without even realizing that the transition was taking place. We are now being refrozen in the new belief system, without realizing our core beliefs and values have been sacrificed, bit by bit.

1. 1. Magnum Opus Malum: (Latin) Great Evil Work. A “magnum opus” in the arts usually refers to an artist’s greatest work. Adding the word “malum” makes it the greatest evil work.
   2. “Global”: The new government will be global governance. “Socialistic”: It will not be representative in the way we have known in the past and government will control all. “Pantheistic”: Religion will be tolerated as long as it conforms to all of the politically correct norms government dictates.
   • Atheistic government with no influence from religion.
   • Abolition of private property in the name of the common (read soviet or collective) good. This includes abolishing any rights of property inheritance. (This is underway in various stages and countries, utilizing various legal mechanisms. It is by no means complete, but the principle is growing in acceptance.)
   • The populace must be disarmed (for their own safety, of course).
   • Government must maintain control of education and what is taught.
   • Heavy progressive taxation must be ever-increasing (Europe’s VAT is perhaps the most abusive), so that government can…
   • Maintain control over its citizens’ lives from womb to tomb, including constant surveillance on their activities and private lives. In essence, law is becoming a means of defending government from the populace rather than the populace from government.

1) The educational system has moved Western culture from a didactic, fact-based system of thought rooted in logic and absolute truth to a dialectic, feeling-based system of thought rooted in constantly changing, non-absolute values. The only mortal sin is failing to believe absolutely that there are no absolutes. (Note the inherent contradiction, but that doesn’t seem to stop the politically correct.)

2) History has been rewritten so that people can’t remember the lessons of the past or the greatness of their own heritage (granted that no heritage is perfect). Good things have been called bad and bad things good. Westerners have been subjected to an ever-present demonization of their culture. The U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, for example, are said to be the outdated product of dead white slave owners who also slaughtered Indians, rather than one of the most liberating documents of history, along with England’s Magna Carta. The British, too, are trading in a 1,000-year tradition of freedom under law as they buy into another one of Europe’s attempts at failed socialism.

3) Communism has been minimized or exalted (despite its being responsible for the slaughter of 100 million people in the 20th century). Capitalism is condemned as a great evil of rich men (despite its record of having provided the most prosperity and freedom for the most people in history).

4) Important distinctions between cultures have been minimized and all cultures are now said to be of equal value, and all beliefs are said to be of equal value with no way of discerning which values might be better or worse (although history teaches otherwise).

5) Tolerance has been substituted for love of neighbor and truth. A corollary is the switch from laws based on absolutes to more complex and nebulous laws, which float with current understandings of “good” or “evil,” about which there is much debate among the “experts.”

6) Religion has been forced into a corner, being told that it is a personal thing, and it has been prohibited from making any claim to absolute truth or the right to impose itself on the culture.

7) Science and science alone – with or without ethics and morals – is permitted to make any claim to truth. Science is said to be the salvation of the human race. (Tell that to those who died in the Holocaust’s “scientific” gas chambers.)

Socialism has been substituted for capitalism as “democracy” and “free market” decried as evil. In reality this belief system is “Marxism lite,” wherein virtually all the major English-speaking countries have accepted the major tenets of Marxism without a struggle, including:

Hostile, not Neutral

As we arrive in the 21st century, the prevailing Western paradigm is hostile to traditional monotheistic religions (Christian, Jewish and Muslim), being a mix of atheism and pantheism. It decries belief in absolute truth, including absolute law. It has set itself up as the determiner of “right” and “wrong,” even though those change continually. Traditional religious beliefs are being labeled extremist and radical.

The new system views itself as utopian in nature, above any religion, viewing religion as a major cause of all the world’s problems. If we really examine the emerging “new” system, it is merely a recapitulation of old, failed Marxist and occult beliefs with a generous dose of pantheism. Unfortunately we’re about to do it again, only this time on a global scale.

What Does This Mean?You have but to look at history to know where we will end up. Cultures rejecting God invariably degenerate into wickedness when left to their own devices without a counterbalancing force of religion to stop them.

The signs of rot are apparent. The West now routinely sacrifices millions of babies annually (to which the Church has voiced only a weak response) and the elderly are next as euthanasia becomes prevalent. Instead of valuing all human life, we will make decisions based on the “quality of life,” which will most certainly be decided by persons other than you or I, and which will largely be determined by economic forces and how well your beliefs conform to the current norms. If your life benefits the collective (the “soviet”), you will be permitted to live. If not, adios!

In a Christian culture, people are generally self-governing, knowing God watches their every move and laws are merely a formal framing of what the people already believe as a group. But in a culture where there are no absolutes, everyone does what he or she wants as long as they can get away with it. This produces chaos. As the chaos brought on by the new belief system increases, freedoms diminish as governments attempt to deal with the chaos. They do this by becoming more and more police-oriented as a plethora of laws is emitted, designed to control the ongoing crisis.

As government continues to dictate its own atheistic, ever-proliferating standards of conduct and belief, many of these will be unpalatable to the beliefs of orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims. There will be increasing pressure on Christians to conform to the new standards. This pressure will range from social pressure to formalized pressure in the job place, where it may mean jeopardizing a job or promotion to a steadily increasing series of regulations. Finally, as more and more people espousing the new paradigm gain control of the legal process, they will use the mechanism of law to impose their utopian vision on the churches that do not conform. This means fines, penalties, increased taxation or loss of tax-free privileges, even prison sentences – all designed to enforce conformity to the new wisdom, which is currently embodied by the push for the amorphous notion of “tolerance.”

The Diabolical Choice

In the new system, there is a place for Christianity…as long as it conforms to the new values, which will be forever changing. Religions will not be permitted to: 1) claim they are the only way, 2) have absolute truth of any kind, or 3) attempt to force their belief and value systems on the culture at large (i.e., evangelizing is out!). Those minor considerations aside, religion will be permitted to exist in the new system as a “personal thing,” as long as it yields to the prevailing political correctness, which if you hadn’t noticed is growing more evil every day.

Traditionally, churches facing this dilemma have made one of two choices: a) loving defiance and paying the penalty, or b) continual compromise with the prevailing system until it is shameful to even call it a Christian church. As Sabine Wumbrand once remarked, “they are spitting in the face of Christ.” In our next installment, we’ll see how churches in similar circumstances lived or died.

* * *

[John Loeffler is host of the weekly nationally syndicated news program,Steel on Steel, which can be heard at www.steelonsteel.com.]

This article was originally published in the
February 2002 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

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**NOTES**

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**ADDITIONAL RELATED RESOURCES**

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Worldview Wars – 4 Audio Tape Set – John LoefflerThe religion of humanism has been rebaptized in our society as ‘secular’ science or philosophy. This teaching exposes the campaign to eliminate the reality of God and Truth from our lives. Click for more information – Audio Cassette

The New World Order – Chuck Missler and Dr. Dennis CuddyIs the New World Order the product of conspiracy kooks? Is there really a major movement toward global government? Is the sovereign nation-state obsolete? Click for more information – Audio Cassette

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**RELATED ARTICLES FROM KOINONIA HOUSE**

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The Attack on our Rights: What Delicate Balance? Part 1 – John Loeffler

In Defenso Fedei: The Rapture Myth – John Loeffler

Paradigms, Preaching and Politics: Worldview Wars – John Loeffler

A Chronological History: The New World Order – D.L. Cuddy, Ph.D

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The Attack on Our Rights: What Delicate Balance? Part 1

From Koinonia Hous

“Freedom is under attack” has been the battle cry since 9/11.  Freedom is indeed under attack, but our intelligence sources indicate Osama bin Laden is not the chief culprit.  The attacks on 9/11 were on America, not freedom.  In reality, freedom has long been under attack by those in the West who have sought to destroy the foundations upon which Western thought, culture and law rest.  In its place a new global, pantheistic, and socialist paradigm is seeking hegemony, while its proponents must still give lip service (at least publicly for awhile) to the old one.  This stealth attack, mounted steadily for almost a century, represents a far greater threat than any airplane or biological attack, because it is more insidious and many victims do not even recognize they are under assault.

The attack on Western culture began in the halls of academia and has now metastasized to politics, the media and even the Church.  Western society has been shoved off a fact-based mode of thought (didactic), rooted in logic, reason and a belief in absolute truth, to a relative (dialectic), constantly-changing system, where there is no knowable truth, where feelings reign supreme and where the outcome justifies the means.  Nowhere does this appear more blatantly than in the arena of politics.

The Delicate Balance

Since 9/11, politicians have been speaking of the need to preserve the “delicate balance” between civil rights and the need to respond to terrorism in a time of war.  They say this without blinking an eye, oblivious of the fact that the Founding Fathers didn’t foresee any kind of “delicate balance” when they wrote the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.  They envisioned an impenetrable wall, beyond which government could not go under any circumstances, except as allowed in the Constitution itself.

They have been justified in their viewpoint, since history shows that a delicate balance rapidly becomes a slippery slope, always tipping in favor of ever-increasing government control and away from citizens’ rights.

Rights not Privileges

A privilege is something which is granted by the state to its citizens and can be revoked by the state anytime the state sees fit.  Rights, on the other hand, are irrevocable conditions possessed by the citizenry, which the state may not revoke for whatever reason.  The difference between the two, thanks to leftist indoctrination,  is now thoroughly blurred in the Western mind.  But this blurring was not a first in the world’s history. Satan used it in the Garden of Eden when he engaged Eve in a dialogue and encouraged her to think dialectically: “Did God say…?”  God’s position was much more didactic: What part of “thou shalt not” don’t you understand?

The right to freedom of speech is important because no free society can exist without it.  The chief target is the ability to criticize government and its policies, which government has a natural tendency to abhor.  Equally, freedom of religion is important because governments have always sought to impose on their citizenry politically correct forms of belief and to oppose anything that would be a competitor. Christians have learned this firsthand through the centuries, since Christianity is always a scandal in any culture to which it goes.

The right to bear arms is essential for three reasons: 1) To protect the homeland from invasion; 2) to defend one’s self against criminals or predators; and, 3) to preclude the possibility that government should ever again become tyrannical and attempt to abolish the other rights.

The right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects is critical to a free society, because without it free commerce cannot proceed and government can seek to exercise control over its populace by threatening them with confiscation of their property.  Added to this is the provision that warrants be issued for searches, because this prevents government from going on a fishing expedition, trying to find people who are committing crimes.  Likewise, a person may not be deprived of property without due process and compensation. The right to trial by jury is important, because it divides responsibility for the outcome among a number of one’s peers rather than a tribunal of judges, who could easily be influenced to certain outcomes, especially if their livelihood as judges is dependant on the outcome of various trials. Freedom from double jeopardy is essential, because it places a put-up-or-shut-up burden on government and prevents law enforcement from trying a person over and over and over again until something “sticks.”

Rights such as these exist in most of the English-speaking countries today. However, these rights are under brutal assault both from the left and the right.

The Great Paradigm Shift

Currently the West is in an epic power struggle – away from traditional thought and a free society towards a totally socialized, planned society where government controls everything from womb to tomb, including how we believe and worship.  Incumbent in this struggle is a move away from national sovereignty and into a “new order” that everyone from Henry Kissinger to Vladmir Putin keeps talking about but never defines publicly what it really means.

In order for the new womb-to-tomb paradigm to be implemented, the old collection of “rights” has to go.  But proponents of the new vision face a dilemma, in that they must give lip service to the existing legal structure at the same time they gut these same institutions of their power.  So a new process of end-running law has been instituted, which gives the appearance of leaving existing laws in place, while making it impossible to have the usufruct of such laws.

The Great International Blur

How do you abolish laws and rights without directly doing so?

1) Make so many laws regulating a guaranteed right that it is impossible to exercise the right.  The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for example, says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.  However, there are so many gun laws in some places, it is impossible to carry a weapon without incurring the risk of being charged with a felony.  If you’re willing to risk years in jail or staggering legal costs, go ahead and exercise your right.

2) Turn over a large amount of “lawmaking” to unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies that generate “regulations,” which have the force of law but are never voted upon by any accountable lawmaking body.  Most of our lawmakers today never read the bills they are passing and there is much mischief in the details.

3) Reinterpret laws to “find” new things in them that were not intended by the original framers of the law.  (Remember that under the new paradigm there are no absolutes, so law can be tortured to say whatever we want it to mean.) A chief example of this was the Supreme Court’s “discovery” of a woman’s right to privacy regarding abortion.

4) Expand a law far beyond what the lawmakers ever intended and what citizens were promised.  Drug property forfeiture laws are a prime example, which allow property to be confiscated on the mere accusation (not conviction) that a crime has been committed.  Originally, Americans were told that the law would only be used against drug dealers. But within a decade, forfeiture laws had exploded to over a hundred and most did not involve drugs at all. Another example was the use of RICO racketeering laws to prosecute abortion clinic protestors.

5) Stretch or blur jurisdiction or claim jurisdiction where the area is unclear.  Courts in Belgium are claiming jurisdiction over what Ariel Sharon did in Lebanon.  Spain wanted to try Agosto Pinochet for things he did in Chile.  A kangaroo court in the Hague is trying accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, even though the court and the laws did not exist when the crimes were committed and the court has dubious jurisdiction granted by who knows whom?

6) Enforce laws selectively, especially for achieving particular political purposes.  While much coverage has been made of the process against Slobodan Milosevic, so far no effort has been made to round up Fidel Castro or Idi Amin (alive and well in Saudi Arabia) for their “crimes against humanity.”

7) Turn jurisdiction over to international bodies by means of treaties or other agreements.  This process is being used to transfer sovereignty.  Most Canadians or Americans would be hard pressed to name even one member on NAFTA’s commissions and yet these people make effectively legal decisions affecting commerce and jobs for thousands of people.

8) Use executive orders (U.S.) or ministerial decrees (U.K.) to do end-runs around lawmaking bodies.  This can be seen both in actions by Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair in shoving the U.K. deeper into the new “United States of Europe” (aka the European Union), where it will someday lose all of its sovereignty.  President Clinton was prolific in his use of executive orders to end-run Congress, especially in the area of non-ratified environmental treaties, but President Bush is striving for next runner-up with his implementation of war tribunals and other things to end-run the civil courts and Congress in a time of so-called (but undeclared) war.  As a matter of fact, unknown to most Americans, presidential executive orders have kept a healthy number of official “emergencies” going for years to enable end-runs around Congress in various areas.

This list of end-runs is anything but exhaustive. Frequently, the end-runs are executed in the name of some good or in handling a crisis, and there is invariably much debate among “experts” about each one.  However, one pattern is becoming clear:  we are systematically gutting the legal structure upon which Western civilization has stood for centuries, and the new proposed order would be unpalatable to most Westerners if they really understood what it meant.

A few years back, a bridge collapsed on a major U.S. highway while traffic was crossing. The structural rot that caused the collapse had been progressing for many years, if not decades.  Right down to last second it looked like a bridge and it served a bridge’s function. However, when the break finally came, it happened in just moments and swept away all that were relying on it. Caveat lector !  The same rot is occurring to the Western legal system. We’ll show you where this is going in our next article, entitled “The Antichrist Doesn’t Wear Tights.”

*  *  *

[John Loeffler is host of the news/talk program, Steel on Steel, heard on the Information Radio Network at steelonsteel.com.]

Worldview Wars – 4 Audio Tape Set – John LoefflerThe religion of humanism has been rebaptized in our society as ‘secular’ science or philosophy. This teaching exposes the campaign to eliminate the reality of God and Truth from our lives. Click for more information – Audio Cassette

What’s Really Going On? The Antichrist Doesn’t Wear Tights – John Loeffler

In Defenso Fedei: The Rapture Myth – John Loeffler

Paradigms, Preaching and Politics: Worldview Wars – John Loeffler

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Proverbs 8:12-21; The Advantages of Wisdom; Wisdom here is Christ, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge; it is Christ in the Word and Christ in the Heart, not only Christ revealed to us, but Christ revealed in us.

Proverbs 8:12-21

12 I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.   13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.   14 Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.   15 By me kings reign, and princes decree justice.   16 By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.   17 I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.   18 Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.   19 My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.   20 I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment:   21 That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.

Wisdom here is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; it is Christ in the word and Christ in the heart, not only Christ revealed to us, but Christ revealed in us. It is the word of God, the whole compass of divine revelation; it is God the Word, in whom all divine revelation centres; it is the soul formed by the word; it is Christ formed in the soul; it is religion in the purity and power of it. Glorious things are here spoken of this excellent person, this excellent thing.

I. Divine wisdom gives men good heads (v. 12): I Wisdom dwell with prudence, not with carnal policy (the wisdom that is from above is contrary to that, 2 Cor. i. 12), but with true discretion, which serves for the right ordering of the conversation, that wisdom of the prudent which is to understand his way and is in all cases profitable to direct, the wisdom of the serpent, not only to guard from harm, but to guide in doing food. Wisdom dwells with prudence; for prudence is the product of religion and an ornament to religion; and there are more witty inventions found out with the help of the scripture, both for the right understanding of God’s providences and for the effectual countermining of Satan’s devices and the doing of good in our generation, than were ever discovered by the learning of the philosophers or the politics of statesmen. We may apply it to Christ himself; he dwells with prudence, for his whole undertaking is the wisdom of God in a mystery, and in it God abounds towards us in all wisdom and prudence. Christ found out the knowledge of that great invention, and a costly one it was to him, man’s salvation, by his satisfaction, an admirable expedient. We had found out many inventions for our ruin; he found out one for our recovery. The covenant of grace is so well ordered in all things that we must conclude that he who ordered it dwelt with prudence.

II. It gives men good hearts, v. 13. True religion, consisting in the fear of the Lord, which is the wisdom before recommended, teaches men,

1. To hate all sin, as displeasing to God and destructive to the soul: The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, the evil way, to hate sin as sin, and therefore to hate every false way. Wherever there is an awe of God there is a dread of sin, as an evil, as only evil.

2. Particularly to hate pride and passion, those two common and dangerous sins. Conceitedness of ourselves, pride and arrogancy, are sins which Christ hates, and so do all those who have the Spirit of Christ; every one hates them in others, but we must hate them in ourselves. The froward mouth, peevishness towards others, God hates, because it is such an enemy to the peace of mankind, and therefore we should hate it. Be it spoken to the honour of religion that, however it is unjustly accused, it is so far from making men conceited and sour that there is nothing more directly contrary to it than pride and passion, nor which it teaches us more to detest.

III. It has a great influence upon public affairs and the well-governing of all societies, v. 14. Christ, as God, has strength and wisdom; wisdom and might are his; as Redeemer, he is the wisdom of God and the power of God. To all that are his he is made of God both strength and wisdom; in him they are laid up for us, that we may both know and do our duty. He is the wonderful counsellor and gives that grace which alone is sound wisdom. He is understanding itself, and has strength for all those that strengthen themselves in him. True religion gives men the best counsel in all difficult cases, and helps to make their way plain. Wherever it is, it is understanding, it has strength; it will be all that to us that we need, both for services and sufferings. Where the word of God dwells richly it makes a man perfect and furnishes him thoroughly for every good word and work. Kings, princes, and judges, have of all men most need of wisdom and strength, of counsel and courage, for the faithful discharge of the trusts reposed in them, and that they may be blessings to the people over whom they are set. And therefore Wisdom says, By me kings reign (v. 15, 16), that is,

1. Civil government is a divine institution, and those that are entrusted with the administration of it have their commission from Christ; it is a branch of his kingly office that by him kings reign; from him to whom all judgment is committed their power is derived. They reign by him, and therefore ought to reign for him.

2. Whatever qualifications for government any kings or princes have they are indebted to the grace of Christ for them; he gives them the spirit of government, and they have nothing, no skill, no principles of justice, but what he endues them with. A divine sentence is in the lips of the king; and kings are to their subjects what he makes them.

3. Religion is very much the strength and support of the civil government; it teaches subjects their duty, and so by it kings reign over them the more easily; it teaches kings their duty, and so by it kings reign as they ought; they decree justice, while they rule in the fear of God. Those rule well whom religion rules.

IV. It will make all those happy, truly happy, that receive and embrace it.

1. They shall be happy in the love of Christ; for he it is that says, I love those that love me, v. 17. Those that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity shall be beloved of him with a peculiar distinguishing love: he will love them and manifest himself to them.

2. They shall be happy in the success of their enquiries after him: “Those that seek me early, seek an acquaintance with me and an interest in me, seek me early, that is, seek me earnestly, seek me first before any thing else, that begin betimes in the days of their youth to seek me, they shall find what they seek.” Christ shall be theirs, and they shall be his. He never said, Seek in vain.

3. They shall be happy in the wealth of the world, or in that which is infinitely better.

(1.) They shall have as much riches and honour as Infinite Wisdom sees good for them (v. 18); they are with Christ, that is, he has them to give, and whether he will see fit to give them to us must be referred to him. Religion sometimes helps to make people rich and great in this world, gains them a reputation, and so increases their estates; and the riches which Wisdom gives to her favourites have these two advantages:–

[1.] That they are riches and righteousness, riches honestly got, not by fraud and oppression, but in regular ways, and riches charitably used, for alms are called righteousness. Those that have their wealth from God’s blessing on their industry, and that have a heart to do good with it, have riches and righteousness.

[2.] That therefore they are durable riches. Wealth gotten by vanity will soon be diminished, but that which is well got will wear well and will be left to the children’s children, and that which is well spent in works of piety and charity is put out to the best interest and so will be durable; for the friends made by the mammon of unrighteousness when we fail will receive us into everlasting habitations, Luke xvi. 9. It will be found after many days, for the days of eternity.

(2.) They shall have that which is infinitely better, if they have not riches and honour in this world (v. 19): “My fruit is better than gold, and will turn to a better account, will be of more value in less compass, and my revenue better than the choicest silver, will serve a better trade.” We may assure ourselves that not only Wisdom’s products at last, but her income in the mean time, not only her fruit, but her revenue, is more valuable than the best either of the possessions or of the reversions of this world.

4. They shall be happy in the grace of God now; that shall be their guide in the good way, v. 20. This is that fruit of wisdom which is better than gold, than fine gold, it leads us in the way of righteousness, shows us that way and goes before us in it, the way that God would have us walk in and which will certainly bring us to our desired end. It leads in the midst of the paths of judgment, and saves us from deviating on either hand. In medio virtus–Virtue lies in the midst. Christ by his Spirit guides believers into all truth, and so leads them in the way of righteousness, and they walk after the Spirit.

5. They shall be happy in the glory of God hereafter, v. 21. Therefore Wisdom leads in the paths of righteousness, not only that she may keep her friends in the way of duty and obedience, but that she may cause them to inherit substance and may fill their treasures, which cannot be done with the things of this world, nor with any thing less than God and heaven. The happiness of those that love God, and devote themselves to his service, is substantial and satisfactory.

(1.) It is substantial; it is substance itself. It is a happiness which will subsist of itself, and stand alone, without the accidental supports of outward conveniences. Spiritual and eternal things are the only real and substantial things. Joy in God is substantial joy, solid and well-grounded. The promises are their bonds, Christ is their surety, and both substantial. They inherit substance; that is, their inheritance hereafter is substantial; it is a weight of glory; it is substance, Heb. x. 34. All their happiness they have as heirs; it is grounded upon their sonship.

(2.) It is satisfying; it will not only fill their hands, but fill their treasures, not only maintain them, but make them rich. The things of this world may fill men’s bellies (Ps. xvii. 14), but not their treasures, for they cannot in them secure to themselves goods for many years; perhaps they may be deprived of them this night. But let the treasures of the soul be ever so capacious there is enough in God, and Christ, and heaven, to fill them. In Wisdom’s promises believers have goods laid up, not for days and years, but for eternity; her fruit therefore is better than gold.

- Matthew Henry Commentary

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Proverbs 8:1-11; The Invitation of Wisdom; The Word of God is two-fold, in both senses, is Wisdom; for a Word without Wisdom is of little value, and Wisdom without a Word is of little use; Divine revelation is the Word and Wisdom of God, and that pure religion and undefiled which is built upon it.

P R O V E R B S

CHAPTER 8

The word of God is two-fold, and, in both senses, is wisdom; for a word without wisdom is of little value, and wisdom without a word is of little use. Now, I. Divine revelation is the word and wisdom of God, and that pure religion and undefiled which is built upon it; and of that Solomon here speaks, recommending it to us as faithful, and well worthy of all acceptation, ver. 1-21. God, by it, instructs, and governs, and blesses, the children of men. II. The redeemer is the eternal Word and wisdom, the Logos. He is the Wisdom that speaks to the children of men in the former part of the chapter. All divine revelation passes through his hand, and centres in him; but of him as the personal Wisdom, the second person in the Godhead, in the judgment of many of the ancients, Solomon here speaks, ver. 22-31. He concludes with a repeated charge to the children of men diligently to attend to the voice of God in his word, ver. 32-36.

Proverbs 8:1-11

1 Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?   2 She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.   3 She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.   4 Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man.   5 O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.   6 Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things.   7 For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.   8 All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.   9 They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.   10 Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.   11 For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.

The will of God revealed to us for our salvation is here largely represented to us as easy to be known and understood, that none may have an excuse for their ignorance or error, and as worthy to be embraced, that none may have an excuse for their carelessness and unbelief.

I. The things revealed are easy to be known, for they belong to us and to our children (Deut. xxix. 29), and we need not soar up to heaven, or dive into the depths, to get the knowledge of them (Deut. xxx. 11), for they are published and proclaimed in some measure by the works of the creation (Ps. xix. 1), more fully by the consciences of men and the eternal reasons and rules of good and evil, but most clearly by Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. The precepts of wisdom may easily be known; for,

1. They are proclaimed aloud (v. 1): Does not Wisdom cry? Yes, she cries aloud, and does not spare (Isa. lviii. 1); she puts forth her voice, as one in earnest and desirous to be heard. Jesus stood and cried, John vii. 37. The curses and blessings were read with a loud voice by the Levites, Deut. xxvii. 14. And men’s own hearts sometimes speak aloud to them; there are clamours of conscience, as well as whispers.

2. They are proclaimed from on high (v. 2): She stands in the top of high places; it was from the top of Mount Sinai that the law was given, and Christ expounded it in a sermon upon the mount. Nay, if we slight divine revelation, we turn away from him that speaks from heaven, a high place indeed, Heb. xii. 25. The adulterous woman spoke in secret, the oracles of the heathen muttered, but Wisdom speaks openly; truth seeks no corners, but gladly appeals to the light.

3. They are proclaimed in the places of concourse, where multitudes are gathered together, the more the better. Jesus spoke in the synagogues and in the temple, whither the Jews always resorted, John xviii. 20. Every man that passes by on the road, of what rank or condition soever, may know what is good, and what the Lord requires of him, if it be not his own fault. There is no speech nor language where Wisdom’s voice is not heard; her discoveries and directions are given to all promiscuously. He that has ears to hear, let him hear.

4. They are proclaimed where they are most needed. They are intended for the guide of our way, and therefore are published in the places of the paths, where many ways meet, that travellers may be shown, if they will but ask, which is the right way, just then when they are at a loss; thou shalt then hear the word behind thee, saying, This is the way, Isa. xxx. 21. The foolish man knows not how to go to the city (Eccl. x. 15), and therefore Wisdom stands ready to direct him, stands at the gates, at the entry of the city, ready to tell him where the seer’s house is, 1 Sam. ix. 18. Nay, she follows men to their own houses, and cries to them at the coming in at the doors, saying, Peace be to this house; and, if the son of peace be there, it shall certainly abide upon it. God’s ministers are appointed to testify to people both publicly and from house to house. Their own consciences follow them with admonitions wherever they go, which they cannot be out of the hearing of while they carry their own heads and hearts about with them, which are a law unto themselves.

5. They are directed to the children of men. We attend to that discourse in which we hear ourselves named, though otherwise we should have neglected it; therefore Wisdom speaks to us: “Unto you, O men! I call (v. 4), not to angels (they need not these instructions), not to devils (they are past them), not to the brute-creatures (they are not capable of them), but to you, O men! who are taught more than the beasts of the earth and made wiser than the fowls of heaven. To you is this law given, to you is the word of this invitation, this exhortation sent. My voice is to the sons of men, who are concerned to receive instruction, and to whom, one would think, it should be very welcome. It is not, to you, O Jews! only, that Wisdom cries, nor to you, O gentlemen! not to you, O scholars! but to you, O men! O sons of men! even the meanest.”

6. They are designed to make them wise (v. 5); they are calculated not only for men that are capable of wisdom, but for sinful men, fallen men, foolish men, that need it, and are undone without it: “O you simple ones! understand wisdom. Though you are ever so simple, Wisdom will take you for her scholars, and not only so, but, if you will be ruled by her, will undertake to give you an understanding heart.” When sinners leave their sins, and become truly religious, then the simple understand wisdom.

II. The things revealed are worthy to be known, well worthy of all acceptation. We are concerned to hear; for,

1. They are of inestimable value. They are excellent things (v. 6), princely things, so the word is. Though they are level to the capacity of the meanest, yet there is that in them which will be entertainment for the greatest. They are divine and heavenly things, so excellent that, in comparison with them, all other learning is but children’s play. Things which relate to an eternal God, an immortal soul, and an everlasting state, must needs be excellent things.

2. They are of incontestable equity, and carry along with them the evidence of their own goodness. They are right things (v. 6), all in righteousness (v. 8), and nothing froward or perverse in them. All the dictates and directions of revealed religion are consonant to, and perfective of, the light and law of nature, and there is nothing in them that puts any hardship upon us, that lays us under any undue restraints, unbecoming the dignity and liberty of the human nature, nothing that we have reason to complain of. All God’s precepts concerning all things are right.

3. They are of unquestionable truth. Wisdom’s doctrines, upon which her laws are founded, are such as we may venture our immortal souls upon: My mouth shall speak truth (v. 7), the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for it is a testimony to the world. Every word of God is true; there are not so much as pious frauds in it, nor are we imposed upon in that which is told us for our good. Christ is a faithful witness, is the truth itself; wickedness (that is, lying) is an abomination to his lips. Note, Lying is wickedness, and we should not only refrain from it, but it should be an abomination to us, and as far from what we say as from what God says to us. His word to us is yea, and amen; never then let ours be yea and nay.

4. They are wonderfully acceptable and agreeable to those who take them aright, who understand themselves aright, who have not their judgments blinded and biassed by the world and the flesh, are not under the power of prejudice, are taught of God, and whose understanding he has opened, who impartially seek knowledge, take pains for it, and have found it in the enquiries they have hitherto made. To them,

(1.) They are all plain, and not hard to be understood. If the book is sealed, it is to those who are willingly ignorant. If our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost; but to those who depart from evil, which is understanding, who have that good understanding which those have who do the commandments, to them they are all plain and there is nothing difficult in them. The way of religion is a highway, and the way-faring men, though fools, shall not err therein, Isa. xxxv. 8. Those therefore do a great wrong to the common people who deny them the use of the scripture under pretence that they cannot understand it, whereas it is plain for plain people.

(2.) They are all right, and not hard to be submitted to. Those who discern things that differ, who know good and evil, readily subscribe to the rectitude of all Wisdom’s dictates, and therefore, with out murmuring or disputing, govern themselves by them.

III. From all this he infers that the right knowledge of those things, such as transforms us into the image of them, is to be preferred before all the wealth of this world (v. 10, 11): Receive my instruction, and not silver. Instruction must not only be heard, but received. We must bid it welcome, receive the impressions of it, and submit to the command of it; and this rather than choice gold, that is,

1. We must prefer religion before riches, and look upon it that, if we have the knowledge and fear of God in our hearts, we are really more happy and better provided for every condition of life than if we had ever so much silver and gold. Wisdom is in itself, and therefore must be in our account, better than rubies. It will bring us in a better price, be to us a better portion; show it forth, and it will be a better ornament than jewels and precious stones of the greatest value. Whatever we can sit down and wish for of the wealth of this world would, if we had it, be unworthy to be compared with the advantages that attend serious godliness.

2. We must be dead to the wealth of this world, that we may the more closely and earnestly apply ourselves to the business of religion. We must receive instruction as the main matter, and then be indifferent whether we receive silver or no; nay, we must not receive it as our portion and reward, as the rich man in his life-time received his good things.

- Matthew Henry Commentary

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