The Return of the King

sunrise

In Malachi 3:1-3 we read:

“Behold, I send My messenger,
And he will prepare the way before Me.
And the Lord, whom you seek,
Will suddenly come to His temple,
Even the Messenger of the covenant,
In whom you delight.
Behold, He is coming,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire
And like launderers’ soap.
He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;
He will purify the sons of Levi,
And purge them as gold and silver,
That they may offer to the Lord
An offering in righteousness.”
(NKJV)

The messenger is John the Baptist, and the “Lord, whom you seek” is Jesus. This prophetic passage was fulfilled when Jesus came to His people and visited the temple 2000 years ago.

Jesus had plenty of warnings of judgement for His people, the Jews, at that time, and He expressed them in parables — see Matthew 21, 25, and Luke 19 for example.

The return of the King isn’t really seen as a happy time, is it? The Lord would return to Zion, but not in the way His people expected, and as a result, there would be resistance (Luke 19:14).

Today, we too are waiting for Jesus to return one day, but this idea of the King being away for a time and returning in wrath and judgment does not really apply anymore does it? I’m not saying there is no more judgement, and I’m not saying there is no more wrath. But, God’s wrath was satisfied in Christ, was it not?

Unlike in the first century, we are not waiting for Jesus to come back to Zion, to establish His kingdom, to pour out wrath, to rebuild the temple — all of that’s been taken care of. And, we the Church, now have full access to God through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was not the founder of a new religion, and His gospel teachings were not primarily teachings on how to be a good Christian — look to the other authors of the New Testament for that.

Jesus’ primary audience, in the four gospels, were the Jews. He was fulfilling Malachi 3:1-3, and proclaiming and warning of the imminent coming of the kingdom and the resulting judgement that would fall on the Jewish people.

When Jesus does return again, He will not be weeping (Luke 19:41-44), rather He will be crying out with joy as He comes to join His faithful people.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Quotes #16

“The future does not stay open automatically; it has to be re-opened by your own inward death and renewal. Not steady movement in one direction but continual re-direction, breaking through old ruts, is the formula for progress. All routine, all secondary forms of life, all the organs of our body even, decay when they do not serve and are not keyed up again by the growth of a new leaf, the bursting of one new blossom, by the one step into the unknown and improbable which we experience when we ask ourselves where our heart really is.”

~from The Christian Future, page 83

Free Speech is for Jerks

Screen Shot 2017-06-16 at 11.36.04 AM
Screenshot of the blog “The Baconfat Papers”

Recently an Edmontonian man was charged with hate speech for a blog he wrote called The Baconfat Papers (www.sunrayzulu.blogspot.com). The blog has been removed, but I found some of his articles via Wayback Machine.

Now, while I hate racism and think it’s evil (and this guy’s blog was especially despicable — basically at the Westboro Baptist Church level), if a guy wants to write a racist blog, he has the right to do so. That’s free speech, and free speech is for jerks too. If you are offended, don’t read it.

If a guy writes a blog which physically threatens someone or calls for others to physically hurt someone, that’s different. That’s no longer free speech of course, since someone’s life may be in danger.

I don’t know if the author of Baconfat, Barry Winters, actually physically threatened anyone; maybe he did. If he did, yes he needs to be charged — but not with hate speech.

“Hate Speech” is one of those ambiguous terms that confuse the issue and leave too much room for abuse. If Barry Winters physically threatened someone, then let him be charged specifically for that. Or, if he called for others to physically hurt someone, let him be specifically charged for that. But if he just wrote a bunch of blogs about how he hates Natives and gays, so be it — that’s just his opinion. It’s evil and wrong, and you can either write to him and tell him why he’s wrong, or, more wisely, just ignore him. There are plenty of guys like Barry Winters out there. They pose no threat unless we give them a platform. And the way to remove their platform is to ignore them — not remove free speech for everybody. Because in the end, who will it be that defines “Hate Speech?”

~Further reading…

He may be Canada’s ‘ultimate troll,’ but should Edmonton blogger be charged for spreading hate?

Progressive Conservatism

This is What it’s Like to be a Race Baiter in Alberta

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Fatherlessness and the Rise of the Shaving Industry

This is one of the best advertisements out there…

The ad is obviously directed at the post-generation X crowd, whose chances of growing up in a fatherless home are about 33% in the USA.

If these young guys had decent fathers, they would be told, “Don’t waste time and money on all these shaving companies’ gimmicks where you have to buy their overly priced replacement blades. Just buy yourself a quality safety razor (if you don’t know how to use it, watch a couple of Youtube videos), a big box of double edge razor blades, and you’re pretty much set for life.

Happy shaving…

BS’rs vs Liars

Smells-Like-Bullshit_fb_99704

A liar is someone who knows that what he’s saying is not true, and he wants to deceive you for his own personal gain and/or to protect himself. He doesn’t necessarily want his lie to be true. He just wants you to believe it so that he can get on with his plans.

A bullshitter, however, while not speaking the perfect truth, wants what he’s saying to be true, and he wants you to want it to be true as well. He will over exaggerate his statistics to make things appear to be better, or more worthy of praise, than they really are. He knows it’s bullshit, he feels it inside, but he convinces himself it’s true just long enough to blurt it out. He hopes that you won’t look too deeply into what he’s saying, and he knows most people won’t.