Monday, February 28, 2005

Is God Serious?

Eight rules the Jews used in copying of the Synagogue Rolls of the Old Testament Scriptures.

1. The parchment must be made from the skin of clean animals; must be prepared by a Jew only, and the skin must be fastened together by strings taken from clean animals.

2. Each column must have no less than 48 nor more than 60 lines. The entire copy must be first lined.

3. The ink must be of no other color than black, and it must be prepared according to a special recipe.

4. No word or letter could be written from memory; the scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and he must read and pronounce aloud each word before writing it. He had to pronounce every word before he wrote it down, with an authentic copy before him. He had to pronounce it aloud, not just see it in his mind. This was to avoid any errors, duplications, omissions, etc.

5. He must reverently wipe his pen each time before writing the word for "God" [which is Elohim] and he must wash his whole body before writing the name "Jehovah"[which is translated "LORD" in our King James Bible] lest the Holy Name be contaminated.

6. Strict rules were given concerning forms of the letters, spaces between letters, words and sections, the use of the pen, the color of the parchment, etc.

7. The revision of a roll must be made within 30 days after the work was finished; otherwise it was worthless. One mistake on a sheet condemned the sheet_ three mistakes found on any page_ the entire manuscript was condemned.

8. Every word and every letter was counted, and if a letter were omitted, an extra letter inserted, or if one letter touched another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once. [Notice that. The words and letters were counted. Think of all the letters on every page of the Hebrew Old Testament. Talk about exactness. Yet that was the method God used to preserve the Old Testament.]


Conclusion: "Some of these rules may appear extreme and absurd, yet they show how sacred the Holy Word of the Old Testament was to its custodians, the Jews (Rom. 3:2), and they give us strong encouragement to believe that every letter of every word is important to God. As proven by Ivan Panin, God’s Word has an protective, sealed, encrypted, unbreakable copyright… its numerical pattern. Greek and Hebrew are the only languages in which every letter has a numerical value, hence every word, phrase, and passage has a numerical value, everything being constructed in a perfect pattern of sevens. The KJB is the only Bible that fits the image of the Greek and Hebrew texts of the TR. The King James Bible says the same thing (it is a true translation) but in the universal language of the 20th century. The meaning of its words can easily be determined by using the Bible itself as a dictionary, or by consulting Webster’s 1828. God’s providence gave us our copyright laws, so that all other English versions would be OBVIOUSLY polluted., and NECESSARILY polluted in order to obtain a copyright. There is no copyright on the TEXT of the KJB, hence anyone can reproduce it without paying royalties, and no one profits from its use EXCEPT YOU. It is clear that there is only ONE Word of God for the English-speaking people of the world. The rest would better be considered books of thoughts ON the bible, not true Bibles per se. God takes perfection in His Word seriously, and so should we.
Google Search of the day: satanic roots + rock music. Good place to start: http://www.av1611.org/crock.html See also:
http://www.av1611.org/crock/crock1.html

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Epiphonema

EPIPHONE'MA n. in oratory, an exclamation; a vehement utterance of the voice to express strong passion, in a sentence not closely connected with the general strain of the discourse.

EPIPH'ANY, n. appearance; to appear. Definitions are from Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary.

The Greek word is used in II Timothy 1:10. The English word for it is "manifest", as it appears in the AKJB of 1611.
Sometimes when I close a window on my computer, another window is revealed that had been behind the window I just closed. If I had used Expose' (a useful feature on the Mac) I would have seen it sooner. A quirky little bug in my FireFox browser causes a little window to repeatedly pop up asking for my password for the "software security device". I have learned that entering the password does no good... the same window immediately reappears elsewhere on my screen. So I tell it to go away, without giving it the password, and then it's back to business as usual... SOS_DD. Sometimes we try to treat God that way.
Lately, I've been vividly reminded of a quirk of human nature that has been obvious in my own life. As fleshly creatures (more fleshly than spiritual) we want to please ourselves more than we want to please God. We want what feels good, regardless of what God might be trying to reveal to us. I lived through the "if it feels good, do it" era of the sixties. I generally don't say I "grew up" in the sixties, because I didn't... grow up, that is. In Romans 1:19, "manifest" (the word in II Timothy 1:10) is used again. Sometimes (as in this passage in Romans) God shows something to people, but they refuse to "see" it, and they claim ignorance. We cover our eyes, stamp our little feet, and say, "No! I can't see it." Kind of like that little FireFox window that I wish would go away and never come back. Verse 20 says they are without excuse. Sometimes the truth is less plain. God wants you to seek it with your whole heart, just because you love Him and want to please Him. When you meet that requirement, "ye shall find it." The question is, "How much do you love God?" Are you willing to give up something that you are hooked on (like rock music or that "occasional" beer) for the simple reason that to do so would be pleasing in God's sight? "We love Him because He first loved us, and gave Himself for us." (Love is an act of giving, not a warm fuzzy feeling.True love gives to meet a need, even though it may not feel good.) But do we love Him enough? I have NEVER believed (here I go again with one of my "judgemental opinions" that stir up such a fuss around here) that ANY of us meets the requirements of the first and second Commandments. Disagree if you must... I think that your disagreement simply proves your own pride and self righteousness. In my own experience I have found that people (including myself of course) want to have their own way, their own "individuality" that seems right to them. Our culture constantly affirms that we should do what "is right FOR US". There are many ways that "seem right". Each of us has a way that seems right to us. But what is right to God? Romans 1 describes people who "don't know" (although God has plainly showed it to them) and don't care. "There is A WAY which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof ARE the ways of death." Prov. 14:12. God does not have a grammar problem here. It means exactly what it says, especially in the uses of the singular and plural forms. There are multiple WAYS things may turn out if the way that seems right to you is chosen, and they all are the ways of death. The way to life, peace, fulfillment and happiness, on the other hand is through the death of self. Mark 8:35.

Music is a way of expressing our individuality. We cling to it , fiercely defending "our turf", and attacking (sometimes viciously!) anybody with the gall to suggest altering our preferences. Sometimes, we need to go to our preference folder and delete our preferences and let God recreate an uncorrupted preference folder. Sometimes we have the realization that the problem could best be fixed by not merely defragging the intracranial hard drive, but by erasing the disk and installing God's OS. My Mac does just fine on OS X (10.3.7 to be exact) but my brain needs OS J ("J" for Jesus). The Bible is clear that we need to DIE TO SELF. John Knox the great Scottish reformer and evangelist said to God, "Give me Scotland ere I die." God said, "You die first, and then I'll give you Scotland." John Knox died to self and God gave him Scotland. One seemingly small "deviation" (error in a file) wreaks great havoc in our lives. In the case of music preferences, we are slow and reluctant to see or admit the root cause of the difficulty. Music is a powerful, addictive force. When people get saved, it is rare that all sins are given up at once. Usually it is a progression, a slow substitution of better preferences in place of the old. The area of music preferences is usually the most adamantly defended "turf" and is given up to God one precious inch at a time, if at all. I have seen this in my own life. There have been changes large and small, and times of no change at all or even of regression. Looking back I can see the hand of God ever-present in my life, patiently correcting and guiding me by whatever means necessary, depending on my level of stubbornness. Sometimes pain was necessary to get me to change. It took a long time to arrive where I am now (and I have a long way yet to go) so I try to be patient with young christians who are going through the same choice-making process... and making wrong choices. I want to help, but help is not wanted. I understand how the father of the prodigal son must have felt, knowing his beloved son was headed for the hog trough. Too bad the boy had to learn the hard way... but lessons WILL be learned, one way or the other.

Recently, my "music consciousness" went through a "quantum shift". I obtained two things. The first was a DVD of Dr. Jack Schaap preaching at Youth Conference 2004 at First Baptist Church, Hammond Indiana. The second was an audio file I downloaded from http://hylesanderson.com/chapel. It is a chapel message preached by Brother Brian Cassada on 10-27-2004 entitled "I Can't See Your Heart, But I Can Hear It". You can download it yourself for free at the site. It takes guts to preach that kind of a sermon. I listened to it and had an epiphany. I thought, "Oh my soul... HE'S RIGHT!!!" The next thought was, "Oh God, I'm sorry." That was several months ago.

I have a special interest in music in that I record and produce all of the audio and video at my local fundamental Independent Baptist Church. I've been doing that for about eight months. Being able to do this has been a source of indescribable blessing for me. The whole thing kind of snow-balled after I recorded (for my own use) my daughters singing in church last June. Now I record everything... and haven't regretted it for a minute.
I just this week introduced myself to blogging and have since been reminded of just how adamantly I have defended my own "music turf" in the past. People get real mad real fast about the issue. This morning as I was slowly coming out of the fog of sleep, I had another epiphany. God was telling me, "Look, you can't expect people to just spend their hard-earned cash on a gamble that you might be right about a different kind of music being worth a listen. You weren't willing to spend YOUR money, were you?" I was NOT willing to go out and buy new music. Experience has shown that for $15 you're lucky if you get one or two really good songs on a CD, and the rest are "filler". The good ones you can hear on the radio six times a day for free, anyway. Out of curiosity, since I hadn't had a good look at the music department of a "christian bookstore" in a number of years, I had visited a local "christian bookstore" and found NOTHING of interest. So I got to thinking. God has put me in a position where I get ALL KINDS of music for free. People bring me tapes, DVD's and CD's and I burn disks. I get the music for free and charge $5 for a CD, $7 for a DVD, printable media with nice labels. Mostly I take cassette tape material and put it on a CD (the owner paid retail for the tape), or make a duplicate copy of a CD so that the owner (who paid retail for the original) can have multiple copies for use at home, in two cars, for several rooms at home, or whatever. I don't think that the fact that I am a "middle man" somehow makes this beyond the "digital rights" of the owner of the cassette or CD. And I don't think that keeping the material on my hard drive is illegal, since it also appears to be legal to swap music among friends. I'm sure there's at least one ambulance-chasing lawyer out there who would say otherwise. It's always about the money with some people. The spirit and intent of the law is to protect the rights of those who have invested a lot of money in producing and distributing the material. It obviously would injure them if someone made thousands of copies and sold them on the street, and they would have "legal standing" to bring a law suit against the offender. That's NOT what I'm doing. The DVD that I offered is not copyrighted, and I know that the people who did the preaching would be delighted that the material is getting around. My son, who attends the college where this material originated, just made a DVD that will be distributed FOR FREE to 11,000 people two weeks from now. It is OBVIOUSLY not about the money with these people. However, it might appear that I am "stealing" if I were to give away music. So to avoid "all appearance of evil" (Colossians 5:23) I have withdrawn the offer I previously made on this post with regard to trying some good hymns for free. Sorry, you're on your own. Actually, the silence has bespoken volumes of just how narrow-minded my detractors are. You would THINK that some would at least want to have a free listen, but NO!! THEY'RE TOO DOPED ON 'CHRISTIAN' ROCK TO CARE! Anyway, I highly recommend "Hymns For The Home" from Sacred Music Service. I have four (RETAIL) albums of their's and it's all really great stuff. They have other music and materials as well, and they're on the Net.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Random Rants and Solemn Soliloquies

solil'oquy, n.
1. A talking to one's self; a talking or discourse of a person alone, or not addressed to another person, even when others are present.
2. A written composition, reciting what is supposed a person speaks to himself.

rant, v. i.
To cry out, to shout, to sound, groan, murmur; To rave in high sounding or extravagant language, without corresponding dignity of thought; to be noisy and boisterous in words or declamation; as a "ranting" preacher.
"Look where my ranting host of the garter comes." ____Shakespeare.

rant, n. High sounding language without dignity of thought; boisterous, empty declamation; as the "rant" of fanatics.
"This is a stoical rant, without any foundation in the nature of man, or reason of things." ____Atterbury.

ranter, n. A noisy talker; a boisterous preacher. (All definitions are from Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary.)

Having set the tone (?!) for this venue, we now launch forth into the rarified ionospheric regions of the ozone layer between my ears. This is my first post (ever). Blame the ozone layer, blame the younger generation... yeah, it's my son's fault... I got this idea from him. Yesterday I could not spell "webblogger"... Today I is one. I confess... it all started a year ago when I bought a 17 inch PowerBook G4 (having never used a computer before). The first day, it was like "OK, now what am I going to do with this thing besides listen to music and watch the cool iTunes visuals?" Within a week, I was editing video and burning DVD's on the little beast. It does everything flawlessly. Photo editing, audio, video ...it even runs Microsoft (Ugh!) software in Virtual PC 6. Not that anybody really needs Microsoft, although Office:Mac 2004 is kinda cool. Don't need Virtual PC to run that. My world went through a quantum shift... Where was I before I got off on this rabbit trail? Oh yeah...

I checked out "justintosh"'s blog. Yeah. He's The Kid. (Parenthethetical statement of a proud Dad: "He's a good kid & I'm proud of him.") Actually he's one of 7 "kids"... but, I digress. The Kid says, "It's so easy to set up a blog." I says to myself, "I have a vague idea of what a "blog" is, but I've never seen one." You gotta "unnerstan" folks, I never touched a computer in a carnal fashion until a year ago. Didn't know what to do with a mouse. Since then, I've been too busy editing audio, photos, and video to have time to do more than wonder momentarily "what's a blog?" So I clicked on the link he so handily provided in his email yesterday and looked at his new blog. Says I to Myself, "I think I can do that." I guess we (Myself and I) will soon see. The Mind of The Mudslinger is versatile, fascile, and adaptive. Oh, in case you're wondering, "Mudslinger" is a veiled reference to my chosen means of obtaining rent and grocery money. "Mud" is mortar. I lay brick and stone for a living. Hence the slang expression "Mudslinger".

Anyhoo... "justintosh" (The Kid) and I are (yeah, you probably figgered this out already, but I just have to confess what is considered terrible heresy in the far reaches of "Windoze World") rabid, proselytizing, ranting Fundamentalist Mac-lovers. The Microsoft Secret Police have us on their Most Wanted list. Is heresy a cardinal, or venial sin? Either way, I suppose it doesn't matter. The heretic hunters from The Holy Office are Out There, slinking about with faces darkly veiled under monastic hoods bearing the imprimatur of Microsoft.
There, there, ...craigintosh feel better now. Maybe those poor souls slavishly bowing down to Microsoft will someday see the light. This is the "year of The Tiger" (veiled astrological reference) ! Tiger is the soon-to-arrive new OS from Apple. Apologies to all those astrologers out there in WinHell... (oops, I mean "using Wintel"). Tiger will eat Bill Gates' Longhorn w/TC for breakfast... if he ever finishes development and succeeds in foisting it upon his blind sheep. Apple vill rule da vorldt! End of rant. Yah! Hi, Justin!