If I Were the Devil: Paul Harvey (Warning for a Nation)

           

This speech was broadcast by legendary ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on  April 3, 1965:

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. 

I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. 

I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.”   

To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. 

I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”.  In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. 

I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . .

If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. 

I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. 

I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. 

I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. 

If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. 

I would designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and  thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them.

If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. 

If  I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. 

And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. 

Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. 

In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing.

Paul Harvey, Good Day.

HT: Fox Nation

The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage

AT 32, one of my clients (I’ll call her Jennifer) had a lavish wine-country wedding. By then, Jennifer and her boyfriend had lived together for more than four years. The event was attended by the couple’s friends, families and two dogs.

When Jennifer started therapy with me less than a year later, she was looking for a divorce lawyer. “I spent more time planning my wedding than I spent happily married,” she sobbed. Most disheartening to Jennifer was that she’d tried to do everything right. “My parents got married young so, of course, they got divorced. We lived together! How did this happen?” 

Cohabitation in the United States has increased by more than 1,500 percent in the past half century. In 1960, about 450,000 unmarried couples lived together. Now the number is more than 7.5 million. The majority of young adults in their 20s will live with a romantic partner at least once, and more than half of all marriages will be preceded by cohabitation. This shift has been attributed to the sexual revolution and the availability of birth control, and in our current economy, sharing the bills makes cohabiting appealing. But when you talk to people in their 20s, you also hear about something else: cohabitation as prophylaxis. 

In a nationwide survey conducted in 2001 by the National Marriage Project, then at Rutgers and now at the University of Virginia, nearly half of 20-somethings agreed with the statement, “You would only marry someone if he or she agreed to live together with you first, so that you could find out whether you really get along.” 

About two-thirds said they believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce.  Continue at NYTimes

United Families Dividing Churches

The Family Integrated Church Movement (FICM) is having a growing impact within fundamental Baptist churches. Since the mid-1990s an increasing number of families within fundamental churches have gravitated toward the family-integrated approach. In addition, families entrenched in the movement have been drawn to fundamental churches because of their emphasis on Biblical preaching and conservatism. At first glance the influence of the FICM might seem entirely beneficial for traditional churches, but unfortunately not all of the impact has been positive. The FICM mindset can divide churches. 

Understanding the FICM

 

The FICM is comprised of evangelical churches, pastors, and laymen who share a distinct philosophical approach toward the family and church. Advocates of family-integrated churches (FIC) believe that families should always worship and fellowship together in age-integrated (i.e., multigenerational) services and activities. Conversely they insist that virtually all age-segregated ministries and activities at church, such as Sunday School or youth ministries, are unequivocally unbiblical. Also, they often speak of the father as the conduit of spirtual growth in the family.

The FICM is not a denomination but rather a loose association of churches and organizations represented by a variety of denominational perspectives. Some key leaders are the following:

• Scott Brown, director of the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC)
• Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum Ministries
• Voddie Baucham Jr., professor, author, and pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church near Houston, Texas
• Eric Wallace, president of the Institute for Uniting Church and Home (IUCAH).

The NCFIC, founded in 2001, is the flagship organization for the FICM and has a national network of more than 800 churches. It should be no surprise that the FICM has close ties to some currents of the homeschooling movement. While homeschooling is not essential to the FICM, the vast majority of families in FIC homeschool their children.  Continue at Sharper Iron

My Take: Are evangelicals dangerous?

Are evangelicals dangerous? Well, certainly not in the sense that more secular voices warn. The vast majority of evangelicals are not attempting to create a theocracy, or to oppose democracy.

To the contrary, evangelicals are dangerous to the secularist vision of this nation and its future precisely because we are committed to participatory democracy.

As Christians committed to the Bible, evangelicals have learned to advocate on behalf of the unborn, believing that every single human being, at every stage of development, is made in God’s image.

Evangelicals worry about the fate of marriage and the family, believing that the pattern for human relatedness set out in Scripture will lead to the greatest human flourishing.

We are deeply concerned about a host of moral and cultural issues, from how to address poverty to how to be good stewards of the earth, and on some of these there is a fairly high degree of disagreement even among us.

Above all, evangelicals are those who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and are most concerned about telling others about Jesus. 

Most of America’s evangelical Christians are busy raising their children, working to support their families and investing energy in their local churches.   Read it all HERE

Families Out of Disasters & Wives Out of Harlots

Excerpted from my forthcoming book What Every Man Wishes His Father Would Have Told Him. From the chapter “Never Move Past the Gospel.”

There will come a time, as comes in everyone’s life, when your progress is halted by the unwelcomed barnacles that attach themselves to our fallenness: marital strife, adultery, life-dominating sin, personal failure, an emotional breakdown, a rebellious child, a sick spouse, the tragic loss of a loved one, unconfessed sin, depression, anger, financial ruin, the ubiquitous test result for cancer which takes a brutal seven days to come back, etc.  Everyone eventually gets to helplessness.  In that moment, if you are like the rest of us, the last place you will turn will be to Jesus Christ.  The Gospel, streaming invisibly as a ticker across the bottom of your life, will seem powerless to affect the more “complex” issues of your existence.  You will immediately assume your modern predicaments require more sophisticated solutions than the Gospel.  The Gospel is comforting, but ineffective deep into the thick of life.

In the shadow of the unexpected you will be half insulted at the suggestion of the Gospel’s sufficiency.  You will most likely turn away from the Gospel, not turn toward it.  I know this makes little sense, but it’s usually true.  Standing under your worst moments, turning to the Gospel will sound like the naïve counsel of a caring grandmother.  A veritable milk and cookies answer.  The stuff of flannel boards and nursery rhymes.  A vast oversimplification of your refined pain.  “Christ and Him crucified” will appear as nothing more than a tattered cliché.  But, such is what men (even regenerate ones at times) have always said about the cross – it is foolishness.    Continue Reading...

Love for the Big and the Small

Feel free to make copies of this article and pass it out to your friends. Feel free to post this on Facebook, mention it on Twitter, link to it on your blog. If you are part of a church with young families I promise this essay will be relevant.

I want to talk about the size of our families. More importantly, I want to talk about loving as we want to be loved and giving each other the benefit of the doubt.

Scripture says the human race should be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28; Mal. 2:15).  Children are always seen as a blessing from the Lord (Psalm 127:3-5; 128:3-4).  Church growth happens evangelistically and covenantally.  So I like big families. My wife and I are on our way to a big family with four little ones already. 

In pre-marital counseling I challenge newlyweds to think through the reasons for birth control (which I am not against) instead of just assuming it. I warn against the abortifacient possibilities of taking the Pill.  I try to dissuade most young couples from the notion that they have to be married for several years before they start a family. I am pro-children big time.     Keep Reading...

Divided, the Movie: a Review, Part One

I noticed the movie Divided popping up all over the place this past week. It is free online, and many people I know were passing it around and recommending it. So last night, I took some time to see what it is all about.

First, the movie is a platform to advocate family integrated churches. It was produced by the National Center for Family Integrated Churches. So you know going in that there is no neutrality on the topic. They are arguing for family integration, and this movie presents their case. That is neither good nor bad, but it something worth noting when you sit down to watch the movie.

If you are not familiar with family integrated churches, let me give you a short primer. Over the last decade or more, there has been a mass exodus of youth from local church bodies. The statistics are overwhelming. Most youth, by the time they've reached middle school or high school, have mentally checked out. When they reach college age, they check out all together and do not return. In looking at the problem, some pastors and church leaders began targeting the modern idea of youth groups as the culprit. According to the family integrated movement, youth groups are non-biblical and a main cause of children leaving. They assert that parents have abdicated their responsibilities to teach their children biblical principles and handed it over to youth pastors and leaders. In an effort to restore parental authority, the movement advocates that churches cease age segregating classes (i.e. Sunday school) and move back to doing church as family units.    Keep Reading...

Marriage Advice from Richard Baxter

If God call you to a married life, expect all these troubles, or most of them; and make particular preparation for each temptation, cross, and duty which you must expect. Think not that you are entering into a state of mere delight, lest it prove but a fool’s paradise to you. See that you be furnished with marriage strength and patience, for the duties and sufferings of a married state, before you venture on it.

Especially:

1. Be well provided against temptations to a worldly mind and life: for here you are like to be most violently and dangerously assaulted.

2. See that you be well provided with conjugal affections: for they are necessary both to the duties and sufferings of a married life. And you should not enter upon the state without the necessary preparations.

3. See that you be well provided with marriage prudence and understanding, that you may be able to instruct and edify your families, and may live with them as men of knowledge, 1 Pet.3:7 and may manage all your business with discretion, Psalm 112. Keep Reading...

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