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Previously I posted and attempted to answer the question: What is the point of Genesis? This related question is what our Lord himself said the Bible of their day--the Old Testament Scriptures (OT)--is about.1. The OT testify about Jesus. Jesus told the Bible teachers of Israel, "These are the very Scriptures that testify about me" (John 5:39). 2. Moses wrote about Jesus. The Bible teachers of Israel believed in the Law and in Moses and rejected Jesus, because of his message of unconditional love for sick and "bad" people. Jesus told them plainly, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me" (John 5). Therefore, the Pentateuch is about Jesus. 3. The OT concern Jesus. Jesus taught the Bible to 2 men who were in despair. What was Jesus' emphasis in Bible study? Luke tells us: "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). When Bible study focused on Jesus, their hearts were burning (Luke 24:32). 4. The OT writes about Jesus, which Jesus fulfills. Jesus said to his disciples, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms" (Luke 24:44).For instance, when we study about the patriarchs in Genesis, or any of the characters in the OT, it is not primarily about certain positive traits in them we should emulate (be like Jacob who "valued" God's blessing), or negative traits in them we should not emulate (don't be like Esau, who is an animal man). Such teachings are not necessarily unbiblical. But if the Bible is taught in such a way, neither Jesus nor the gospel is presented. Pastor and theologian Edmond Clowney would call such a Bible study or message a "synagogue sermon," which means that a Jewish rabbi would be able to teach the same thing as the Christian Bible teacher or preacher. Such teachings are moral and ethical. It does not change or transform the heart, which only happens when the heart is confronted by Christ and the gospel (2 Cor 3:18).
Surprising ("Hesed") Love (1 Samuel 9:1-13)
Love that truly loves is willing to bind itself, is willing to promise, willing and gladly obligates itself, so that the other may stand securely in that love.
2 Sam 9:1-13 is all about love. It is about David's love for Mephibosheth. The Hebrew word, which appears 3 times in 2 Sam 9:1,3,7, is hesed. Its meaning is rooted in the character of God. It is so rich that so single English word can fully do it justice: stedfast love, loving kindness, covenant friendship, loyal love, and justi ce are a few of the ways we translate hesed. Notice 3 things about hesed in David's example:
- It is a priority.
- It is surprising.
- It is promise-driven.
What is the priority David gives to hesed? When David was finally established king of Israel in Jerusalem, what was the very 1st thing he does? He sought for a way to show kindness (2 Sam 9:1). The search goes on until Saul's crippled grandson is found (2 Sam 9:2-6). David is like this because God is like this (Lk 19:10; Jn 4:23).
How aggressive is hour love for people? Like David, and like God, are you on the lookout for people to love?Are you on the lookout to find ways to love people who can't pay you back, who are weak, who might even have been your enemies? This is what hesed does.
II. Surprising Generosity
A 2nd thing about hesed is that it is "over-the-top" generous. Mephibosheth was the surviving grandson of King Saul--the deeply troubled ruler who hated David and sought repeatedly to kill him. Mephibosheth's father was Jonathan, David's dearest friend despite Saul's hatred, now dead along with his father. Years before, knowing that David would one day rise to power, Jonathan asked David not to cut off his love (hesed) from his family (1 Sam 20:14-15). It meant, "please don't do to me and my family what is customary in regime changes...please don't kill us." David refuses this narrow meaning. His application of the promise is expansive (2 Sam 9:7). David will show him a "kindness"--a Hebrew idiom for intensity of expression, something like "Upon my life I guarantee that I will look after you!
God's hesed love is like this. He is not content simply to see us taken care of. He wants us with him--he wants to honor us as his children. What makes this love doubly amazing is that we are proven enemies, not just potential ones. What is most astonishing about this love is what it cost: our elevation to the king's table cost God much more than some territory that he might have kept for himself. It cost him his life (Rom 5:6).
Is our love like this? Is it over-the-top, surprising in its generousity? Does it think through and address the particulars? Is it directed toward the "lame"--those who are in no position to reciprocate? Does it find special joy in conferring honor upon others? Is it fearless, reaching out to those who might turn out to be our enemies? Is it costly?
III. Promise Driven Commitment
David's hesed arises from faithfulness to pledges earlier made (2 Sam 9:1,7). What drove David's kindness was not human pressure. No one expected it. No one knew about his promise except Jonathan, who was dead. It wasn't to save face (lame beggar begging at his gate). It wasn't a deadline (20 years). It wasn't political safety (which would dictate his death). It wasn't convenient (easier to ignore him). What drove David's kindness was his word.
David shows us what our God is like. God would rather die than break a promise. In fact he did. Having promised in ancient times to rescue us from bondage to sin and death (Gen 3:15), he followed through, submitting to the horrors of humiliation, crucifixion, and death in order to bear away our sin and death. God swore to his own hurt (Ps 15:4).
Our words tend to be so much cheaper than God's. We make our marital promises that at least 50% of us formally break, and the rest of us break in our adulterous imaginations. We make vows, commitments and pledges lightly, not willing to pay the price to keep them. But God's love is a love that loves to honor--a love that pays a price. It is a love that keeps its word. So here we have God's standard, displayed movingly in David's 1st act as king:
- a love that takes the initiative,
- a love that is over-the-top generous,
- a love that is costly,
- a love that is thoughtful and particular,
- a love that never wanders from promises that have been made.
IV. The Source of Costly Commitment
How do we do this? Where do we find the power to love this way? The standard is beyond us.
We find the power to love this way in the same place where David found it--in the hesed that God bears toward us. David could love Mephibosheth as he did because he had tasted God's faithful and practical love through 2 stormy decades. Though life was not easy, he had been fed, sheltered, delivered, loved, and finally vindicated by God (Ps 27:1). Similarly for us (1 Jn 4:19).How do I know that I have God's hesed? That I am safe and beloved? How can I be sure when I am so lame and crippled in both feet (2 Sam 9:8,13)? Because God's hesed toward me is not grounded in my performance. It is grounded in the performance of someone else. It is at the heart of this story and it is very important to understand.
Why was Mephibosheth so safe with David? Not because of Mephibosheth. Not because of anything he had done. Not because he had drawn out David's compassion. Not because he had done something to merit David's concern. His good fortune had nothing to do with him. It had everything to do with Jonathan (2 Sam 9:1,7). Jonathan swore undying loyalty to David, surrendered his crown to him, loved David unconditionally to the bitter end. Not Mephibosheth, but Jonathan was the reason for the pouring out of the king's love upon Mephibosheth.
Why are you and I so safe with God? Not because of us. But because of Jesus--the one who gave his crown to the Father, the one who pledged his love and stayed loyal to his Father to the very end--even though that end meant crucifixion and hell, in obedience to the Father's wishes.
Jesus is the one and only man in history who has fully and fairly won the full outporuing of God's abundant lovingkindness (Mt 17:5). Yet he lost it all on the cross (Ps 22:1; Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34) on our behalf. Thus, God's hesed on Jesus is given freely to us (1 Jn 3:1-2; Rom 8:32).
Jesus is our true David who loved us more than Mephibosheth. Jesus is our true Jonathan because of whom we are so loved.
This is a rough transcription of a sermon by Charles D. Drew, Heralds of the King, 103-116.
Posted by West Loop Church at 11:52 AM 0 comments
Labels: love
The Purity of Christ and Our Fallenness (James 3:17)
"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." (James 3:17)Only Jesus fulfills these heavenly attributes of wisdom perfectly. Only by the grace of God that transforms us might we reflect these attributes that do not originate from our fallen selves. Pure. Purity (blamelessness) is the primary virtue with all the rest stemming from purity. Jesus is the pure perfect soul. Even our purity as Christians fall short because of our spontaneous default to impure motivations. Even our best and purest of Christian acts are like filthy rags (Isa 66:4). Peace-loving. Jesus is the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6). Only Jesus promotes peace without any jealousy or selfish motivation or ambition (James 3:16). Considerate. The ESV and NASB translates this as "gentle." Jesus was the most meek (Matt 5:5), "gentle and humble in heart" (Matt 11:29). Even at his very worst moment of life when he was led unjustly like a lamb to the slaughter, he did not open his mouth (Isa 53:7). Our best frail attempts at being gentle and considerate might be to be soft spoken, evasive or mute. Submissive. Other translations are "open to reason" (ESV) and "reasonable" (NASB). Jesus was submissive unto death (Phil 2:6-8), even though this was most unreasonable. Our best attempts at submission might be to avoid the unpleasant repercussions of non-conformity. Full of mercy and good fruit. How can any man be merciful toward one who seems to be unmerciful toward us? Only Jesus was merciful, when we were merciless toward him in our sins. Because of the mercy of Jesus, he bears the good fruit of our continued transformation (2 Cor 3:18; Gal 5:22-23). Impartial and sincere. The NASB translates this as "unwavering and without hypocrisy." Try as we may, we default toward our own biases, preferences, prejudices and cultural identities. Thank God that he does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34; Rom 2:11). Otherwise, only the good guys go to heaven, and all the bad guys have no hope!
Posted by West Loop Church at 10:04 AM 0 comments
The Stairway to Heaven (Gen 28:10-22)
One of my favorite songs of all time is "The Stairway to Heaven," by Led Zeppelin (1971). I could listen to it every day without ever getting tired of it. It is the perfect rock song ever. Why? The progressive crescendo and the spell binding ambiance makes the song mesmerizing. A google search says, "this song is about a woman who accumulates money, but finds out the hard way that her life had no meaning and will not get her into heaven."Perhaps, this song has captivated countless millions of all ages through out the world for 40 years, because we human beings are all, without exception, seeking a "stairway to heaven," however we chose, on our own terms, to define heaven or God. In today's text, Jacob discovers, through his dream given to him by God, something radical about the stairway to heaven. It is the polar opposite of what most people and most religions think. Even Christians who misunderstand this "stairway to heaven" live a religious life that is not Christian, and which is no different from all other religions in the world. Theme: The stairway to heaven originates from God (not man), and it is a gift of God. [The Lord will be with his people wherever they go.]Goal: To distinguish between the gospel (God's salvation given to man) and religion (Man's effort to attain his own salvation). [To comfort God's people with his promise that he will be with them wherever they go.] Application: Rely on God who wants to do everything for his people.The subject of this text is the subject of heaven. There are 3 parts to this passage:
- Jacob's condition before the dream
- The dream itself
- Jacob's response to the dream
- The Darkness of Heaven (where heaven seems closed to Jacob)
- The Openness of Heaven (where heaven opens in his dream)
- The Gateway of Heaven (where Jacob begins to learn the way to heaven, the secret to heaven's gate)
- A stairway. Gen 28:12 says, "He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." It was something huge with dozens, hundreds or thousands of angels ascending and descending on this stairway. It must have been a stunning unforgettable sight.
- Angels on the stairway. What are angels? It is not what the TV and movies portray. Often, when an angel shows up in the Bible, he says, "Fear not." The word "angel" means a royal herald or attendant, a herald of his royal majesty, declaring and executing the degrees and declarations of the King. The angels ascending and descending means that God's royal power is on the move. Messengers were coming out of and returning to the throne of God. Jacob saw the angels descending from the throne of God to the earth, and returning from the earth to the throne of God. Thus, Jacob sees a visual display of the royal power of the majesty and holiness of God.
- The Lord. Gen 28:13 says, "There above it stood the LORD..." Robert Altar, the Hebrew expert, thinks that it is over or "above him." God came and stood right over Jacob in a posture of intimacy and nearness. And God told Jacob 3 things.
- "I am with you" (Gen 28:15), when Jacob was utterly friendless. The only person who loved him in the world is his mother, whom he will never see again for the rest of his life.
- "(I) will watch over you" (Gen 28:15), when he was utterly defenseless.
- "I will give you...the land" (Gen 28:13-14), when he was utterly penniless. Thus:
- Any place is the gate of heaven: Don't dichotomize your life. There is no place where God is not working. God's power can work and come down anywhere, for "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it" (Ps 24:1; 1 Cor 10:26). Therefore, a Christian must not dichotomize his life. Do we act, think and feel differently on Sun at church, than at other places or at other times of the week? We should practice God's presence everywhere, because God's presence is everywhere.
- God works especially in times when we are totally weak, totally alone, totally forlorn. God reveals himself the best at such times. Why did God come to Jacob when he didn't ask? When he didn't pray? When he wasn't living a good life in any way? God is attracted to his brokenness. God does not just come despite Jacob's brokenness, but because of it. Jacob has been dressing up. He's looking to other people for approval, so he has to be somebody else. But at this point everything falls apart. The emperor has no clothes. He is laid bare. God comes down and sees him sleeping. He is completely defenseless with no facades left. God looks at him at the bottom and loves him to the sky. This is what we all need. No other husband, wife, father, mother, king, leader, human being can take our complete weakness. They are too weak to bless us if we show them all of our weakness. But there is the one Father, King, Friend, Husband who comes down and sees us at the bottom with all of our weaknesses, brokenness with no facades, and is actually attracted to us because of them. Ps 25:11 says, "For the sake of your name, LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great." Jonathan Edwards pointed out that God forgives us not in spite of our sins but because of it. He is that kind of God.
- God doesn't give up on us, despite our "disgusting" motives. Do you think that Christianity is too much work, and that I can't keep this up? Look at Jacob's response. What's interesting is that it is so bad; it is horrible. God comes and gives him unbelievable unconditional promises of love without a single "if." God simply says, "I love you," with no "ifs." But Jacob says I will serve you "if" you do all the things you promised....then you will be my God. Don't do that! How can you come to One who has utterly given himself to you without you giving yourself utterly to him? But does God give up on Jacob after hearing his "nauseating vow"? No. What do we learn here? Even though our responses to God will always be half-ass, God will not give up on us. Why? Because Jesus took our penalty. Jesus is our stairway. Heaven opens over us by sheer grace. If we see Jesus do this for us, and to the degree we see Jesus do this, we will see heaven open. Have you seen heaven open?
Posted by West Loop Church at 4:00 PM 1 comments
The Problem of Blessing (Gen 27:18-34)
I knew a medical student whose parents blamed him for their unhappy life. Despite being a brilliant student, his mom often said to him, "My life is miserable because of you." When he graduated from medical school, he committed suicide with a fatal overdose. Before he lapsed into unconsciousness and death, he called up his mom, and said with tears, "Mom, I am granting you your wish. I love you." His tragic life was the result of not receiving any blessing from his parents.Theme: God wants to give us the ultimate blessing that we all desperately need. (God uses even human deception to accomplish his redemptive plan to bless the world.) Goal: Seek the ultimate blessing that our soul needs. (Reassure God's people that our sovereign God's redemptive plan of blessing cannot be derailed.) Application: Seek the blessing of God so that we can truly bless others (and not use them).Jacob is a very contemporary figure. He is easy for modern people to relate to. He has more struggles, failures, doubts, weaknesses. He is the most unheroic hero in the Bible. To see his story in context, God calls Abram to save the world through his family (Gen 12:3; 18:18-19). In each and every generation there will be a bearer of the messianic seed carried by one of his descendants. One day, the seed will be the messiah who saves the world. The seed was passed on through Isaac, not Ishmael. Then the seed will be in one of Isaac's 2 sons: Esau or Jacob. Which one is it? Who is the bearer of the seed? Who is the son of promise? Who is the one who will be blessed? Our key word from this text is blessing. Our concept of blessing today is so shallow and wimpy that we do not properly understand this text. We need a much richer understanding of blessing, without which this passage is confounding. This passage, which is all about blessing, will show us:
- The Power of Blessing
- Our Deep Need for Blessing
- The Wrong Way to Get Blessing (How we usually try to get blessing, which does not work)
- The Right Way to Get Blessing
What is this blessing? Both Rebekah and Jacob thought they could steal it. At the end of this encounter, both Isaac and Esau thought that it was stolen. Why doesn't Isaac just take back the blessing from Jacob since he was tricked? Why didn't he call Jacob back and say, "You're just a fraud and a crook. I take back my blessing!"? Our idea of a blessing might be to compliment people and to be nice to people. Then they say, "Bless your heart. You just blessed my heart." That's what the English word "blessing" means. What is blessing in the Bible? What is so powerful about it? Is it a last will and testament? It could be (Gen 27:28-29). Why couldn't Isaac give any further blessing to Esau (Gen 27:34-38)? Are they just primitive people? Words of blessing from a significant figure have tremendous power to shape one's life. We could reshape the well known nursery rhyme along biblical lines, as such: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make or break my very soul." We know that off handed comments and casual comments (both words of blessing or cursing) made to us/about us, affect us more profoundly than we care to admit: "You're useless. You're ugly. You're stupid. You're a loser." These words are still operating like a power in our life today, though they were uttered just once decades ago. These words are still programing and dictating our lives. Words have a power to them, especially words of affirmation/blessing/valuing, or words of condemnation/criticism/cursing. These words move into us; they go to the very depths of our being. They become a part of us. They shape who we are. We all know this. The ancients knew this. Words can ruin/devastate us, or comfort us and lift us up for years and years. If casual words have such an impact on us, how much more words spoken in an authoritative climactic setting, like a death bed blessing. What do words of blessing teach us?
- There is the power of blessing. It is a deep accurate spiritual discernment of who this person is, how God has gifted them, who they truly are (Gen 27:28-29, 39-40). One who has spiritual discernment, who looks into a person to perceive who they truly are, and who carefully uses words of affirmation and blessing, it empowers them to the very heavens all the days of their life. If you have ever truly been blessed, you can never ever forget it all of your life. Isaac knew that his words of blessing to Jacob had a power of its own. It wasn't just well wishing. It would empower Jacob to become the person God had created him to be.
- There is our deep need for blessing. Thus, our lives would be distorted without it. We would wrestle and struggle forever if we don't perceive we have experienced the power of blessing.
II. Our Need for Blessing
The struggle for blessing is the theme of Jacob's life. He does everything possible to get the blessing (Gen 27:6-29). When struggling all night with God at the climactic moment of his life, he says, "I will not let you go unless you bless me" (Gen 32:26). No one can bless themselves. Jacob's intense need for blessing is seen when Isaac asks Jacob who he is. Jacob said, "I am Esau your firstborn" (Gen 27:19). But when Isaac asks the real Esau who he is, Esau said, "I am your son, your firstborn, Esau" (Gen 27:32). Robert Altar, Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, says in his Genesis: Translation and Commentary (1996), "He (Jacob) reserves the crucial term 'firstborn' for the end of his brief response." Jacob's emphasis is "I am your firstborn," for the last word of the sentence is the most crucial. In that hierarchical and patriarchal society, sons, not daughters, and the oldest son, not any other son, was the one who received the lion's share of the wealth and inheritance. Thus, the father dotes on his firstborn, since the future of his family is dependent on his firstborn. As a result, all the daughters and all the other sons were ignored by comparison. Gen 25:27-28 say, "The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob." Esau was like a man's man, while Jacob was a quiet, unimpressive mama's boy. Isaac, over the years, doted on Esau and gave him the informal blessing of the firstborn. What is this?
The struggle for blessing is the theme of Jacob's life. He does everything possible to get the blessing (Gen 27:6-29). When struggling all night with God at the climactic moment of his life, he says, "I will not let you go unless you bless me" (Gen 32:26). No one can bless themselves. Jacob's intense need for blessing is seen when Isaac asks Jacob who he is. Jacob said, "I am Esau your firstborn" (Gen 27:19). But when Isaac asks the real Esau who he is, Esau said, "I am your son, your firstborn, Esau" (Gen 27:32). Robert Altar, Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, says in his Genesis: Translation and Commentary (1996), "He (Jacob) reserves the crucial term 'firstborn' for the end of his brief response." Jacob's emphasis is "I am your firstborn," for the last word of the sentence is the most crucial. In that hierarchical and patriarchal society, sons, not daughters, and the oldest son, not any other son, was the one who received the lion's share of the wealth and inheritance. Thus, the father dotes on his firstborn, since the future of his family is dependent on his firstborn. As a result, all the daughters and all the other sons were ignored by comparison. Gen 25:27-28 say, "The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob." Esau was like a man's man, while Jacob was a quiet, unimpressive mama's boy. Isaac, over the years, doted on Esau and gave him the informal blessing of the firstborn. What is this?
It is to have the most powerful person in the clan--the father--look at you and say, "No one's like you. You're special. I love you more than anyone else." It is to have the uniquely valuable person say to you, "You are uniquely valuable to me." Why is Jacob exploiting his father? Why is Jacob risking everything in such a cold calculating way? When he says "I am your firstborn," he is saying, "I should have been the one that you dote on. I am the unique one. I am the special one. I am your firstborn. I should be the head of the family, not my impetuous impulsive shallow temperamental brother. I should be the one you should have loved most. Give me what I want. Give me blessing. Smile on me. Dote on me. Bless me." This is what every human being wants more than anything else. We all want the blessing of the firstborn. When we do not have it, it poisons our life. When Isaac favored one son, it poisoned everybody's life. Jacob became a cold calculating conniving opaque person. Esau, though likable fun loving person, became a rotten spoiled brat. Isaac was poisoning his own kids by giving the informal blessing of the firstborn all along to Esau, and now he wants to give him the blessing formally. No one wants general love from general people. But we want unique love from uniquely special people in our own lives. We need a person we look up to say to us, "There is no one like you. You are special. You are unique. I love you more than anyone else." We all want/need this. We cannot bless ourselves. Our self worth cannot come from ourselves. We need a smart person say we are smart. We need a good person say we are good, in order to feel good. This is the blessing of the firstborn. We all need this. We all need blessing. III. The Wrong Way to get Blessing
Jacob is a frightening example for how to get blessing. He became like somebody else. He hid himself and dressed up as somebody else. He dressed up as someone he is not. He dressed up like Esau. He got hairy like Esau. He changed his voice to sound like Esau. Isaac probably thought, "You feel like Esau. You're hairy like Esau. But there is something about the voice." To get blessing, Jacob could not be himself. He had to be someone else in order to be blessed. He was different from Esau. He was smooth. He was domestic. He couldn't be himself if he wanted to be blessed by the most important/significant person in his life.
We are all doing this. How are we getting blessing from others? From the world? How are we getting the blessing we really need? We don't let others see who we are, see our flaws, weaknesses. We dress up like someone else. If we like someone, we think, "What if this person loved me? Wow. Then I would be blessed." Someone who is stunning, attractive, lovely looks at me and says, "There is no one like you. You are my everything." To get what we desperately feel we need, we dress up like someone we are not. We put a lot of time into our appearance, our clothes, our mannerisms, that may not be who we truly are. We dress up as someone else to get the blessing we think we desperately need. Some desperately need their parent's approval. They try to be something they think their parents want them to be. Or they rebel. They become the opposite of what their parents hope/expect, saying, "I don't care what my parents think." But why are they so upset? Their lack of blessing from their parents, or others, cause them not to feel blessed. So they can't be themselves.
Another way to get blessing is to come to church and Bible study, and dress up as a really good Christian, with no gross sins or temptations or weaknesses or hangups. Why? They want other Christians to think well of them; they want their blessing. So they dress up to be like the Christian that the other Christians think they should be. But this does not work.
One of the saddest verse is when Isaac says, "Come here, my son, and kiss me" (Gen 27:26). This is a sly way for Isaac to have 1 more test to confirm that this really is Esau; he can then smell him. Gen 27:27-28 say, "So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said, 'Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed. May God give you heaven's dew and earth's richness—an abundance of grain and new wine.'" What did Jacob see when this was said? Jacob saw the look of his father that he had always wanted--the look of pride, affection, affirmation--the radiant look of joy that he had always wanted to see from his dad toward him, and the words from Isaac's lips that he always wanted to hear. Did this help? Did this change him?
This blessing sat inert for many hears, because Jacob knew it wasn't him that Isaac was loving/blessing. It must have been incredibly bitter to get that close to get from his father the love he always wanted, but it was not Jacob for he had dressed up. So, though he was blessed, yet he was not blessed at all.
Anyone who dresses up and is blessed for dressing up does not experience blessing at all. If someone hides his sin, his flaws, his weaknesses, and even if they are blessed, they are not really blessed because they have dressed up. All the compliments and blessings in the world are not going to sink in and fill up that vacuum. What then can we do?
This narrative is extremely bleak for everyone's life falls apart. Esau screams for blessing, saying, "Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!" (Gen 27:38) Then he plans to kill Jacob (Gen 27:41). Rebekah had no choice but to send Jacob away (Gen 27:42-25). She never sees the son she loves ever again for the rest of her life. She never again sees the only one she has a loving relationship with. Jacob, who received the blessing of the firstborn, goes away penniless. Everyone's life falls apart. What is the moral of the story?
Be a better parent. Bless all our children, not just one of our children. Pray for insight to see our children's gifts, strengths and aptitude and bless each of them with affirmation and confirmation with the wisdom of God. We do learn this from this text? But there are 2 problems:
- Those who have already been messed up by bad parenting and have already left home.
- But even those who received good parenting are also still like Jacob.
The need for blessing is not just the result of bad parenting. Bad parenting makes it worse. God parenting makes it better. But even with good parenting, we are still covering up, hiding ourselves, dressing ourselves up to be someone in order to get others to give us their approval and blessing. We are like little kids who say with our silent inner voice, "Bless me. Bless me, too" as we dress up like a great husband, a great father, a great worker, a great doctor, a great teacher, a great Christian, a great man, etc. Outside we dress up like someone great and honorable, but inside we are like a kid, saying, "Bless me. Bless me too" (Gen 27:38). Why? There is a spiritual problem here. What is the solution?
It is hinted at by what Isaac says. After Esau came and Isaac realized that he has been deceived, Gen 27:33 says, "Isaac trembled violently and said, 'Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!'" There is a complete shift toward the end of Isaac's sentence. He begins with "who was it," and shifts with the word "indeed" which is similar to "behold." He is saying, "Who is that crook, liar and cheat who just came and deceived me, and behold he will be blessed." He is realizing 2 things:
- God works even through Jacob, and the crooks, liars, failures and the bad people. That is what God does. God works through and brings his grace to unworthy people. Commentators say that Esau is the more likable character, and even the narrator/storyteller likes Esau more. Thus, God's grace is working even against the taste of the narrator. There is almost nothing about Jacob that is appealing. With Abraham there were good chapters and bad chapters. But with Jacob every chapter is bad. He does not do anything that is a good example. In a way, he is the weirdest person possible for God to choose/bless. What is the moral of the story? It is not that if you have a great family God will work, and if you have a bad family with bad parents God won't work. Instead, God is blessing the one who is the most screwed up member of the whole family. The moral of the story is that God brings his scandalous intervening grace into the lives of people who don't seek it, don't deserve it, who resist it, and who don't appreciate it even after they have been saved by it--over and over and over again. God works through sheer grace.
- Isaac surrenders to God's grace. When Isaac says, "—and indeed he will be blessed!" he is not only saying that God will bless Jacob, but that he will accept it. Derek Kidner, in his Genesis (The Tyndale OT Commentary Series),1981, says that this "expresses more than mere belief that the spoken word is self-fulfilling; he knows he has been fighting against God, as Esau has, and he accepts defeat." How has Isaac been fighting against God? During Rebekah's pregnancy the Lord revealed to her that "the older will serve the younger" (Gen 25:23). Surely, Rebekah shared this with her husband. But he has been fighting against this all of his life. He wants to follow the world's way of blessing the older son. He follows his own preference of wanting the man's man Esau rather than the mama's boy Jacob. He realizes he has been resisting the whole approach of grace, for he likes the stronger one, the better one, the older one, the more appealing one, but he doesn't like the weaker one, the less likable one, the younger one, the marginal one, the failed one. But now he not only accepts the God of grace, but he also rests in that grace and surrenders his resistance to the God of grace. How can we do this? How can we get the blessing by accepting God's grace?
IV. The Right Way to get Blessing
Jacob was wrong when he said, "I am the firstborn." The word "firstborn" occurs 109 times in the NIV. The Bible tells us that Jesus is "the firstborn over all creation" (Col 1:15), God's firstborn whom he brought into the world (Heb 1:6), "the firstborn among many brothers" (Rom 8:29), "the firstborn from the dead" (Col 1:18; Rev 1:5). This means that Jesus lives through out eternity in a state of firstborn blessing, living in the very bosom of his Father, "in closest relationship with the Father" (John 1:18; NIV 2011). The Father, the ultimate person, doted on his Son, and poured out love and blessing into his Son's heart. What love, joy and delight any father has when he just watches his child sleep. This might be just a dim hint of what the Father saw in his Son through out eternity. But the Son leaves his firstborn blessing. He comes to earth and dies on the cross. As he dies he prays. Every other time Jesus calls God Father. But as he dies he says, "My God, my God" (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34), instead of Father. Why?
On the cross, Jesus lost the blessing of the firstborn. How? Paul says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.' He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit." (Gal 3:13-14). Jesus dressed up like us and got the curse we deserve, so that when we believe in Jesus we can be clothed like him.
The way of salvation through our own effort is where we dress up saying, "I am a good person, though I sin a little here and there." We dress up for God through our effort, hoping or expecting that he should bless us. It does not work. Why? We will be as nervous as Jacob was when he was dressing up like someone else hoping not to be discovered as a fraud in order to be blessed.
The way of the gospel is that Jesus dressed up as us, so that he got the curse we deserve. Then when God sees us, he sees us as though we did everything Jesus did. When we believe in Jesus, we receive what is too hard to believe and too good to be true: we get the firstborn blessing. Heb 12:23, says, "to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven." What kind of family has nothing but firstborn? How can a parent with 12 kids have all firstborn?
What this teaches us is that the love, blessing, affirmation we experience from the Father when we stand on the basis of Jesus' work and righteousness, and what he did for us on the cross, makes us feel like we are the only one in the world, and the most loved person who ever lived. We experience exactly what it feels like to be the firstborn. God makes us feel like "there is no one like you." Jesus said, "the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:23). A Christian knows that God has loved him even as God has loved Jesus. We know God's love when we see Jesus losing the firstborn blessing so that we can have it, when we see Jesus dressing up like us so that we can dress up like him. Jesus is the one who fulfilled what Rebekah said, "may the curse fall on me" (Gen 27:13). She didn't know what she was saying, and she couldn't do what she said. But Jesus did. He took the curse that should fall on me. Jesus is our true Rebekah. Jesus took our curse and lost his firstborn blessing, so that we, who should have been cursed, could have the firstborn blessing of the Father.
What does this mean practically?
- The blessing of the firstborn is available now. Though we are not in control of it, we need to go and seek this blessing experientially, for as Christians this is available to us. Rom 8:16-17 say, "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ..." This is only done by God through the Spirit. Yet we can experience this now (Rom 5:5).
- Truly bless others. "Bless and do not curse" (Rom 12:14). We can do so only when we have personally experienced the blessing of the firstborn. Humanly we can bless and compliment others. But we do this so that others will like us. This is not blessing; it is using. We are not really discerning who they are, or what God is doing in their lives, or thinking of them, but only thinking of ourselves. Only when we know that we are truly blessed, can we truly be a blessing to others (Gen 12:2), by empowering them to be the person that God intended them to be.
Truly blessing others is not clairvoyance. No one can just pronounce a blessing on others without truly knowing that person. To bless others requires that we are their friend, and that we know them with deep meaningful discernment, as Jesus blessed Nathaniel (John 1:47-49).
This is from a sermon by Tim Keller (The Problem of Blessing [Gen 27:18-34]).
Posted by West Loop Church at 1:52 PM 0 comments
Abraham Offers Isaac (Gen 22:1-14)
"The LORD will provide" (Gen 22:14).Theme: The Lord provides a sacrificial lamb so that his people may live. Goal: To assure God's people that their faithful covenant Lord can be trusted to provide their redemption. Application: Do we trust the Lord to provide, or do we go after what we want?{A major challenge of teaching/preaching Genesis 22 is to avoid superficial applications by attaching practical remarks to verses in the text, without asking what message Israel received from this narrative. For example, as Abraham was called to sacrifice his son (Gen 22:2), "so we, in like manner, may be called upon to make sacrifices." Or "great trials are best entered upon with but little company" (Gen 22:5). Or "God delights to bring his people to the mount, to the very brow of the hill, till their feet slip, and then he delivers them" (Gen 22:11). Though not unbiblical, it misses the theme of the author. Similarly this title and "imperative" outline misses the theme of Genesis 22: Sermon title, "The Journey of Faith." Sermon points: 1. Be in relationship with the Most High God; 2. Risk it all; 3. Be prepared and obedient; 4. Trust God to provide; 5. Receive God's blessing. When I reviewed Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller, I shared how I used to teach Gen 22: "Offer your Isaac to God, you sinner!" and how Keller, in his book, explained the narrative by pointing to Christ.} Of this famous text, F.B. Meyer (1847-1929), Baptist pastor and evangelist in England, rightly said: "So long as men live in this world, they will turn to this story with unwaning interest. There is only one scene in history by which it is surpassed; that where the Great Father gave His Isaac to a death from which there was no deliverance."Gen 22:1-19 records the most famous incident in Abraham's life. The Hebrew word for this narrative is "Akedah," which means "the binding of Isaac." Robert Altar, in his Genesis: Translation and Commentary (1996) says, "The abrupt beginning and stark, emotion-fraught development of this troubling story have led many critics to celebrate it as one of the peaks of ancient narrative." It is one of the best told stories in all of ancient literature. It is absorbing, infuriating, and riveting. As a result, people have spent centuries debating all the various multiple levels of meaning in the text. Let's see if we might get to an understanding of this and hopefully be transformed by it by looking at these 3 points:
- The essence of the call
- The horror of the test
- The wonder of the lamb
- The call to go: "Leave...and go" (Gen 12:1), and now: "Take your son...and go" (Gen 22:2).
- I will show you later: "...go to the land I will show you" (Gen 12:1), and "Sacrifice him ... on a mountain I will show you" (Gen 22:2).
- A call to offer/give up a lot: "country, people, father's household" (Gen 12:1)--his safety, status, culture, family--and now "your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac" (Gen 22:2). This was not God rubbing it in, but to restate the obvious that Isaac was his only son left, since Ishmael had already left. Isaac was the only bearer of his family inheritance, his only social hope. Isaac has become Abraham's emotional center. God was asking Abraham to offer up every finite source of hope and security.
2 practical applications:
- People ask/think: If I become a Christian, do I have to do this/that, give up this/that, stop this/that? One who asks this is not coming to God at all. They are not coming to God as God. God/the call of God always says, "Go, and I will show you." A working definition of God: God (god) is the absolutely sacred non-negotiable thing in your life.
- Sometimes it feels as though the God who is trying to save you is killing you. Elizabeth Elliot visited a sheep farm in Wales. She saw the shepherd put the sheep into an antiseptic tank to keep them from getting parasites/worms that would kill them. The shepherd forced their head into the water, while the sheep struggled to get out. To save them, it felt as though their shepherd was trying to kill them.
- God does not tell Abraham to murder his son, but to offer him up as an offering, not to just stab him.
- Because God told Abraham to offer him up as an offering, the command was not incomprehensible to Abraham.
- Ancient cultures were not individualistic. Our hopes and dreams are of individual success and prosperity. In Abraham's time no one thought this way. Their hopes and dreams were for the family's success. They didn't think as individuals, but they thought as a family.
- The iron law of primogeniture. It was universally practiced by all ancient cultures. It meant that the oldest got all the marbles, he got almost all the inheritance. If the inheritance was divided up equally, the family would lose their status in the community. Thus the firstborn got everything, and he had to be the benefactor for everyone else.
Posted by West Loop Church at 9:31 PM 0 comments
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Don?t just stand there! Fight the sluggish and bad economy with cheap posters! That is right! If you have a small business that may be having difficulty in today?s market environment explore is eating organic and consider taking basic principles again in terms of promoting locally. Full color posters is usually the step to more local visibility plus your possibility to actually foster a pleasant local following on your services and products. So here are my tips in making use of some creative color posters to assist fight the unhealthy economy and succeed together with your business.
Unfortunately it is extremely simple to get lured in by they will who seem relatively normal most likely. These people, after we first meet them, are impossible to detect and that we usually decide to try them right away. They appear like such great people, but soon we just as easily get cheated. Because they can be takers their best style of visitors to prey upon are the ones who may have difficulty saying no thank you. Makes sense considering takers love those with self-doubt who can eventually give to their demands and say yes. If this heard this before, please read on there's help up ahead.
pemutih wajah alami
However, it really is become possible as a consequence of easy option of swimming pool area builders in India. Even though a pool might seem a straightforward construction but actually it incorporates many complex features mysterious to others but with an authenticated pool area builder for example Desjoyaux Pools, India which has its origin in France. With the help and support extended by Desjoyux Polls, India you could have your private children's pool built in accordance with your own personal or perhaps your spouse's design and choice. What is more, a kidney shaped pool area could be built-in your backyard or on the rooftop to your pleasure and fun. Alternatively, you may want to find the design from countless pool drawings provided by Desjoyaux Pools, India. Nevertheless, whatever design you could choose, the ideal pool area could be developed to your fullest satisfaction once the job is entrusted to Desjoyaux Pools, India.
Autistic children might find it more challenging to find out inside a school setting than in the home with the many distractions surround them. These children particularly need structure, and also a designated area devoid of distractions like noise, visuals that don't connect with the curricula being trained, and in many cases smells. Even simple photos hanging on the wall can send their mind wandering in the different direction. Before beginning to homeschool, be sure to designate a place at your residence that may be totally free of distractions and used for learning.
Your journey doesn?t even have to be by having a real place. You can use a city from an internet gaming. Many people makes use of the house they spent my youth in, while they moved away a long time ago. The location doesn?t really matter. The most important thing is the fact that you can find identifiable landmarks which can be extremely familiar to your account.

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If your roof needs a roofer, you want to employ someone who will finish the task for a reasonable cost and in a time efficient manner. Dimensional Roofing and Diagnostics provides a variety of roof repair services in Westworth Village, TX. We strive to provide our customers with the strongest level of roof repair services available in their area. We partner with only the most reliable roofing manufacturers to purchase the most durable roofing materials available. In order to get the most from the strong roofing materials we purchase, we hire only skilled, reliable roofers to attach them. We're here to help if you require a commercial roofer to finish minor roof repairs, or if you are interested in learning about the benefits of upgrading to a metal roofing system. Contact (512) 402-8528 if you are interested in employing an honest, dependable roofer who will take care of your business.
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If you find yourself requiring a commercial roofer near you, Dimensional Roofing and Diagnostics is here to help. Whatever style of roof you have, we have the expertise and products to fix it. Contact us to schedule an inspection and we'll help you understand the condition of your roof and whether you need minor repair, a full blown replacement or if a roof restoration is a possible option. We give you all the facts about your roof you will require to make an informed decision. Our company is dedicated to offering you superior customer care. We offer dependable roofing at reasonable prices because we understand the important role your roof plays in your commercial building. We're here to help keep your business operating smoothly. Call (512) 402-8528 to hire an honest, reliable roofer in your area.
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Monday, August 18, 2008
Virtual Book Tour
I am the third stop on Lorina Stephens Virtual book tour. Take a look at the article on my web site. She is a very creative lady who has self published several books. If you would like to check out the second stop on the tour you will find it here.
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Air Algerie Plane Flown by Child makes Safe landing in Algeria
Air Algerie flight AH-6212 made a safe landing at Ain Arnat Airport, Algeria, on July 26th.
The Avions de Transport Regional ATR-72-212A flying from Algiers, Algeria, was about to depart when the captain invited an orphan child to assist in flying.
The plane landed safely.
No one was injured.


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Status: Open
Know more about this business than we do? Cool! Please submit any corrections or missing details you may have.Help us make it right
Be the first SILive.com user to add photos or videos of Centreville Service Center
Do Not Go there At All. I went for an inspection and my car had about 15K miles on it and they said that I needed to change all my brake pads, otherwise I was not going to pass inspection. This was a total lie. I told them to immediately remove my car from their lift. I went to a dealer and they said that the brakes had more than half there life on them and measured it (and everyone knows the...
Centreville Service Center was founded in 1980, and is located at 10502 Rockaway Blvd in Jamaica. It employs 3 employees and is generating approximately $360,000.00 in annual revenue.


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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
US-CERT: United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team
Microsoft PowerPoint Multiple Vulnerabilities
Last revised: --
Source: US-CERT
Systems Affected
Microsoft has released updates that address vulnerabilities in Microsoft PowerPoint.
I. Description
As part of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for May 2009, Microsoft released updates to address vulnerabilities that affect Microsoft PowerPoint.
II. Impact
By convincing a user to open a specially crafted PowerPoint file, a remote, unauthenticated attacker could execute arbitrary code, gain elevated privileges, or cause PowerPoint to crash.
III. Solution
Microsoft has provided updates for these vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for May 2009. The security bulletin describes any known issues related to the updates. Administrators are encouraged to note these issues and test for any potentially adverse effects. Administrators should consider using an automated update distribution system such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).
IV. References
- Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for May 2009 - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-may.mspx>
- Microsoft Windows Server Update Services - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wsus/default.aspx>
Feedback can be directed to US-CERT.
Produced 2009 by US-CERT, a government organization. Terms of use


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'The Voice': Jennifer Hudson Proves To Be The Perfect Addition As Season 13 Coach
If you were hesitant about Jennifer Hudson as a coach on 'The Voice,' I promise you, there's no need to be! The 'American Idol' winner made her debut on the show's season 13 premiere — and she was just perfect!
While Adam Levine and Blake Shelton have remained constants on The Voice since the very first season, the other two red chairs have been filled by a rotating door of various celebrity coaches. The stars who make up the panel are constantly changing, and in its 13th season, the hit NBC show introduced yet another newbie, Jennifer Hudson, who joins Adam, Blake and season 11 vet, Miley Cyrus. I have to admit: I was skeptical at first. In fact, I always am when someone new comes on. I think Jennifer is incredible, but after seeing the great chemistry Miley had with coach Alicia Keys last time she was on the show, I just wasn't stoked about the show's decision to change things up again. Would it be the same?
Of course, it wasn't exactly the same, but that doesn't mean I wasn't pleased! From the very first Blind Audition, it was clear that Jennifer had an immediate connection with the other coaches, and knew how to banter with them just as good as anyone else has in the past. She proved from the beginning that she'd be a force to be reckoned with, too, nabbing a contestant off a four-chair turn at the start of the show, but battling hard with Miley, Adam and Blake to do it. The Oscar winner knows how to really sell herself to the contestants and the other coaches should definitely be weary!
Jennifer did coach on the UK's version of The Voice before coming over to the American version, so she's had some practice. However, when it comes to coaching, dedication to the artists and chemistry with the other celebs on the panel is what viewers connect with the most, and she's proven in just one episode that she has both of those things, too. I don't know about you guys, but I'm stoked to see what happens next!
HollywoodLifers, do you think Jennifer did a good job on The Voice?


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For the past two days I've been staying in Winooski (down the road from St. Mike's!) receiving training for my position as a cabin counselor at Camp Outright this coming week. So far I've learned a lot! We've had speakers from UVM and Hope Works present about issues that we might encounter at camp, and the whole experience this at has been very positive.
Today we move in to camp to set up and get ready for the campers. I'll be leading sailing and assisting in other activities, and I'm pretty excited to go camp since I haven't gone in a few years ;) and it will be cool to be a counselor this time around!
Then after camp, I have two nights to pass at a friend's house before I move back to St. Mike's for the fall semester! Which begins with the best week of everyone's freshman year, orientation ;)
So see you in a week! And thanks for reading. :)


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Did you know that whatever you post online leaves a digital footprint. Negative or positive, it still could affect your reputation. These are some words that and sentences that equal to having a positive digital foot print and a negative digital footprint. Be sure to throw me some comments including FF and FB! I hope this helped!!
I am a Year 8 student at Tamaki Primary School in Auckland, NZ. I am in Room 8 and my teacher is Miss Kyla.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Cyber Smart: Digital Foot Prints
Labels: Cyber Smart, Reading
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Kevin and Dane played in their first father/son golf tournament together on the Saturday before Father's Day. They had such a great time and Dane had lots of great shots. He did really well, and looking forward to more tournaments this summer.
On Father's Day Kevin had the day to himself. Bringing Jace to restaurants isn't much fun right now with this stage of life he is in. He is constantly on the move and won't sit still. Sometimes it's a lot of work so if you get the chance to eat without kids you take it! Kevin wanted seafood and to see a movie so that's what he did. Having a little quite time is good for the soul. I think he enjoyed the day. We showered him with gifts, which unfortunately I can't remember what we got him besides what Jace made for him at his school. HAHA
My kids are so lucky to have such an involved father. Kevin always puts us first and sacrifices so much to give us what we need and want. He's a great father and husband and we are truly blessed.
Jace was my big helper when I went to Kroger to get a few of Kevin's favorite treats.


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Data entry and mass marketing - repost
Budget $30-250 USD
Seeking IT project manager to develop and grab databases of various specific professionals. Data entry and excel knowledge as well as SEO mandatory. Should know how to write code to send up to 500 emails an hour.
15 freelancers are bidding on average $137 for this job
I have a lot experiences and great feedback for this type of project, fast and pay attention to the details.
An undergraduate majoring in mathematics and computer science. All we in computer class is data entry there;fore i think i can handle this job.
I was an educator and my duty as an operator school, I used to typing and data entry typing various ... I used to work in a timely manner ... I am interested to work on the data you provide. thank you
Hi I am here for your project let me do this job for you.
Data entry is the job i m looking [login to view URL] is what i stick on.


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I decided I'd make this blog. I searched the first word in every BTR song title, like for Til I Forget About You, I searched til i, and if BTR doesn't come up, I'll put no popularity. I searched them on YouTube. If I put 4th Place I mean it was the 4th most top one searched. If it only has two words in the title, then I search the first one.
Til I Forget About You - 4th Place. Lost to - Til I'm Gone, Til I Collapse, and Til I Collapse Eminem.
Boyfriend - 4th Place. Lost to - Boyfriend, Boyfriend Tag, and Boyfriend Number 2
City is Ours - 3rd Place. Lost to - City is Mine Drake, and City is Mine
Nothing Even Matters - 2nd Place. Lost to - Nothing Even Matters Lauryn Hill
Worldwide - 2nd Place. Lost to Worldwide Choppers.
Halfway There - No Popula…Read more >
Okay guys. So this is the slightly confirmed third album tracklist. Some of it may change.
(These are not in order)
Overboard (feat. Justin Beiber)
Real Gone
Cover Girl feat. Whiz Califia
No Idea feat. Akon
Superstar feat. Pitbull
Where Ever You Are
Anything Goes
Dance Dance Dance
I Won't Give Up
Intermission (iTunes bonus track)
So it has been confirmed that these are all real songs. Dance Dance Dance was shortened on Big Time Beach Party, Intermission has been leaked, Anything Goes was shortened in one of Carlos's YouTube videos, Where Ever You Are was leaked online, but only 10 seconds of it, Paralyzed has been leaked, the lyrics for Overboard and Real Gone are on LyricWiki and Cover Girl, No Idea, and Superstar with their guests have been…
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Okay guys. I think these may be the scrapped songs from Elevate. Rememeber Clevver TV said there was like 25 but they lowered them down to 12. Well that means that 15 songs were scrapped. Here they are -
1. Intermission (cover of Travis Garland's song)
2. Overboard (feat. Justin Beiber) (go to LyricWiki)
3. Real Gone (go to LyricWiki)
4. Anything Goes (possibly featuring Ke$ha)
5. Dance Dance Dance
7. Blow Your Speakers (changed to iTunes bonus track)
8. Paralyzed
9. Epic (only released in UK)
10. I Wanna Hold Your Hand (cover of The Beatles' song, instead used in Big Time Movie Soundtrack -EP)
11. Evacuate the Dancefloor (cover by BTR)
12. DJ Got Us Falling in Love (cover by BTR)
13. Boyfriend feat. New Boyz
14. Call Me Maybe (originally by Carlos him…Read more >


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|01 — Intro. And Radio Derb is on the air! Yes, ladies and gents, this is your cosmopolitanly genial host John Derbyshire with commentaries on the week's news.As you may have surmised from the opening adverb there, this weeks' podcast has an international flavor. This week, listeners, we go spanning the world — the Middle East, the Far East, Germany, Britain, and a courtesy call at Australia.First, though, some domestic news, featuring our charismatic and exquisitely, sensitively emotional Chief Executive.
|02 — Is Obama mad, sad, or bad? Tuesday this week saw an unsightly bit of political theater at the White House.President Obama held a ceremony to announce some executive orders he's issued concerning a slight tightening-up of the federal rules on selling guns. The constitutionality of these new rules is disputed, and we can look forward to some wrangling over them in the courts.The new rules are political theater in themselves. They are so picayune, it's highly improbable that a single life will be saved by them, as even sympathetic analysts have pointed out.So why did Obama bother? Well, part of what he was doing was just busy-ness for the sake of looking busy. He's the President; he has to be seen doing something.Another part was sticking a finger in the eye of the Republican-controlled Congress, which declines to take up gun-control laws. Congress had likewise declined to do so during Obama's first two years, when the Democrats were in control; but Obama probably calculates, probably correctly, that nobody remembers that.Obama deliberately pumped up the theatricality by putting rhetorical emphasis on the 2012 elementary-school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. That was when 20-year-old psycho Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in that town. In fact Obama had himself introduced by Mark Barden, whose first-grader son Daniel was one of those 20 children killed by Lanza."Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad," said Obama, in his speech following Mr Barden's introduction. He then wiped a tear from his eye. He seems only to have mopped up the right side of his face, so the press could get pictures of the left cheek all wet; the New York Post's Wednesday edition front-paged one of those pictures. Either that, or Obama has mastered the art Bill Clinton was said to practice when occasion demanded it: the art of weeping out of one eye.Excuse my cynicism. This weepy stuff rubs me the wrong way. I'm old-school Brit: stiff upper lip, and a man who cries in public is a sissy, or else a cynical politician going for the sissy vote. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure my attitude is particularly British. Perhaps it's just old-school, period. Didn't Ed Muskie's presidential campaign back in 1972 crash and burn after he was seen crying? I guess the sissy vote wasn't such a big factor 44 years ago.And Obama's words don't match his actions. They really should, for effective theater; but the tearing-up followed those words I quoted, quote again, "Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad," end quote. You don't tear up when you're mad; you tear up when you're sad. I call bogus on Obama's tears.For the Sandy Hook shooting, "sad" is actually right. There is no denying the horror of it. I've raised two kids; I don't need telling. It's hard to see how very occasional random horrors like that can be prevented, though.The guns Lanza used were legally owned, and would have been if these executive orders had been in force. Lanza was crazy as a coot, no doubt about that; but he wasn't crazy in any way that cried out for taking his liberty away, unless you want taking away a citizen's liberty away to be a lot easier than it currently is.Lanza was in fact what Special-Ed teachers, when I was in that line of work, called an FLK — Funny-Looking Kid. That's not grounds for incarceration, though, and shouldn't be.In a populous nation, random acts of horrible lunacy will very occasionally happen. It's not an exclusively American thing: the Dunblane school shooting in Scotland, 1996, and the Port Arthur spree killing in Australia that same year both happened under far more restrictive gun laws than would be constitutionally possible in the U.S.A.Sometimes, after the event, you can see ways the thing might have been prevented; other times you can't. This is a fallen world, with an irreducible component of horror built into it. And that should make us sad. Not mad, sad.Spree killings are anyway only a tiny proportion of gun deaths. There are about 30,000 gun deaths a year in the U.S.A., two-thirds of them suicides. Of the ten thousand or so that aren't suicides, spree killings are a fraction of one percent. If you add up the spree killings for 2015, for example, there were 3 in Chapel Hill in February, 9 in Charleston in June, 2 in Lafayette in July, and 14 in San Bernadino in December; total 28. Out of 30,000.Speaking of suicides, here's a curious little fact from a recent survey by the Brookings Institute, title "Guns and race: The different worlds of black and white Americans." In the years 2011-2013, 77 percent of white gun deaths were suicides, only 19 percent homicides. For black gun deaths the reverse was the case: only 14 percent suicides, 82 percent homicides.My question: If life under the iron heel of White Supremacy is so intolerably painful for blacks, why is it the white people who are committing suicide?OK, back to the President's Tuesday speech. If you want to be really cynical, you might suspect that Obama, or someone among his advisers, is making a market play. Headline from Forbes magazine, January 5th, quote: Gun Stocks Surge As Obama Issues Executive Orders On Gun Safety. Quote from the story, quote:
Shares of Sturm, Ruger & Co jumped 6.8 percent in Tuesday trading, hitting their highest level in a full year … Smith & Wesson, meanwhile, saw its stock surge more than 12 percent and reach its highest price since July of 2007.Am I actually that cynical? No, of course not. In fact Obama's speech, the bogus tears aside, was quite conciliatory by his standards. You can read the whole thing at Newsweek.com. It made no mention of the fact, though, that recent years have seen soaring levels of gun ownership along with falling rates of violent crime.Didn't someone write a book about that? Yes, someone did: John Lott, More Guns, Less Crime, way back in 1998. Perhaps Obama could include it in one of those vacation reading lists he publicizes from time to time.
|03 — Yin, yang, and a great Fred rant. In the various social problems afflicting the Western world, some people think they see the fundamental issue as sexual.I'm not talking here about the Beast with Two Backs; I'm talking about yin and yang, the female and male principles, whose interaction drives the Tao, the way things happen.I've dabbled in this line of thinking myself. Three years ago I published a column titled "White People are Pussies," lamenting the passivity and ethnomasochism of the British, Scandinavians, and even the Russians.These kinds of speculations are most prominent in that corner of the Internet called the Manosphere — websites that draw on insights from evolutionary psychology to explain the behavior of women, and to teach guys how to use those insights to their own advantage in dating and mating.They turn up elsewhere, though. They turned up in Steve Sailer's column at TakiMag on Wednesday this week.Steve's column is actually a book review. Steve's reviewing a book titled Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. Along the way, though, he gives a passing mention to Jean Raspail's 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints, which is about a Third World invasion of Europe. Nineteen seventy-three is a long time ago, so Raspail was forecasting what we've been seeing this year in Europe. However, says Steve, longish quote:
Raspail missed key aspects of what happened in 2015. He imagined that the refugees would be starving masses who overcame European resistance by their pitifulness. But instead, the invaders turned out to be strutting military-age youths with smartphones, giving Germany's surrender a weird sexual vibe that nobody yet has explained satisfactorily even in retrospect.End quote.That caused one of Steve's readers to contribute the following to the comment thread at Steve's own blog, another longish quote, slightly edited:
The sexual appeal of strutting military age young men would be to whom? To women, both young and old. If the appeal is sexual it can't be to anyone else. It is to women … The sexy men are invading because the women want it.And it's stupid but it's not false.When men make a mistake, they invade somewhere they should not have — due to male desires blinding their reason.When women make a mistake, they invite someone they should not have — due to female desires blinding their reason.The reason we have not yet seen an explanation is that we assume politics are based on male desires. And second, women do not understand their own desires, so they would be less able to articulate this than I am. What woman would say, "I know it is stupid, but I need to see if these sexy, strong foreigners might make better lovers and rulers"?End quote.That got some push-back from other commenters. Some pointed out that mainstream-media pictures of the Muslim invaders try to avoid showing the fit young males, preferring to focus on distressed women and drowned toddlers. You could say that's also a yin play — an appeal to the feminine — but to a different module of the female brain.Others wondered, as I have, looking at some of the news pictures of weedy European guys welcoming muscular male migrants, whether the appeal of those "strutting military-age youths" is entirely heterosexual.And then here comes columnist Fred Reed. I've known Fred for 15 years, since we both contributed to Steve's HBD Yahoo group. Fred's erratic, with a lot of swings and misses, and he's developed an animus against me that I haven't been able to figure out, but when he finds a sweet spot he hits the ball out of the park.Extracts from Fred's column at his own website. His topic is Obama's gun-control executive orders. Edited long quote:
I confess to a grudging admiration [for Obama]. He, belonging to one of the virile peoples — blacks, Hispanics, and Moslems — has keenly diagnosed the weakness of American society:There is no one who will say "No."The Supreme Court? Nine corpses in a wax museum. Congress? If they all poisoned themselves nobody would notice. Though it would still be worth doing.A President with brass balls — and god knows Hussein Obama has them — can do anything with an executive order. Anything. And we obey …More correctly, the European population — pale, white, feeble things wriggling like fly grubs in the corruption of a putrefying body politic — obey. Blacks and Moslems do not allow themselves to be pushed around. They are, whatever else they are, virile. They look to be history's winners. Though not civilization's …I know, [Obama] knows, we all know, that outlawing guns means disarming whites. Nobody is going to go into the depths of darkest Chicago and try to de-gun the occupants. As the looting and burning and destruction grow, as the looters and burners realize that no one is going to stop them, wise people want guns, for when. This will not have a happy ending.Obama, in what looks like racial vengeance, brings in, as fast as he can get away with, large populations of his two ethnic groups, Africans and Mohammedans and, apparently because they are not white, Hispanics. This will have, is having, enormous consequences for the country, all brought about by one man with the will to do it. No popular vote, not a whimper from Congress. When poked, the vaunted American polity turns out to have the strength of a continental beached jellyfish …Now I see that American whites are buying "safe rooms" … Now, who do you suppose the people in their safe rooms are afraid of? …"Safe Rooms" are the last, pathetic, contemptible line of defense of frightened, passive white people against uncontrolled crime.End quote.It's a great rant. Fred is, in fact, one of the best ranters in the business.Are these commentators on to something? Is there a yin-yang aspect to our civilizational crisis? Are white people pussies? Or is is just white men? Should we be putting testosterone in the water supply? … No, wait a minute, the women would drink it too, and end up looking like Serena Williams.Discuss among yourselves while I take this theme off on a couple of tangents.
|04 — Germany's Muslims not yet figured out grooming. I was in the city of Cologne just once, in 1954. I was nine years old, on my way to visit my brother, who was stationed with the British Army in Düsseldorf. Through the train window my mother pointed out the famous Cathedral, which I recall as looking very battered still from wartime bombing damage. The Cathedral had taken fourteen hits, but somehow survived.It may not survive much longer. What the British and American air forces failed to do, the Germans themselves may yet accomplish. With the floods of young Muslims into Germany last year, to be followed presumably by chain migration of their relations and anyone who can afford forged documents to claim a relationship, combined with the dismally low fertility rate of native Germans, Germany could be under Islamic control by the time my kids retire.Given what Islamic fundamentalists have been doing to historic structures in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, it would be foolish to bet on Cologne Cathedral being around for another seven hundred years; unless, that is, the invaders just turn it into a mosque, like Hagia Sophia.These gloomy thoughts were of course inspired by the events on New Year's Eve in the center of Cologne. From the New York Times report dated January 5th, quote:
Taking advantage of the New Year's Eve street party, hundreds of young men … described by the authorities as having "a North African or Arabic" appearance … broke into groups and formed rings around young women, refusing to let them escape, the authorities said. Some groped victims while others stole wallets or cellphones.Witnesses described the atmosphere around the city's central train station as aggressive and threatening … The Cologne police added that they had received 90 complaints from victims, including one who said she had been raped. No arrests have been made.Cologne … is among Germany's most ethnically diverse cities, and it took in more than 10,000 refugees last year.Ah, diversity! Let's murmur a word of thanks that the Times at least didn't say "vibrant."Note the date on that report, January 5th. Quote from the report itself, quote: "The assaults initially were not highlighted by the police and were largely ignored by the German news media in the days afterward," end quote.Nobody has yet been prosecuted for these attacks.You can see that the German media have some way to go yet towards really sophisticated reporting on multicultural crime. They told us the perps are of "North African or Arabic" appearance. When they've had a few more years' experience they'll know to totally suppress this kind of information and just tell us, as the American media do, that "the assailant was described as a tall man in a red jacket."Germany's new batch of Muslim migrants are likewise not yet sophisticated in the ways of the West. After they've had a few more years' experience of our society, they'll know that assaulting white girls in the street is kind of crude. What you do is, catch them coming out of school around age 13 and kidnap them for sex slaves, like the Muslims of Rotherham in England. The police won't investigate for fear of seeming racist. That's how it's done, guys!After the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Oliver Cromwell's corpse was dug up and hung in chains, then thrown into a garbage pit. If, fifty years from now, Germany were somehow to rid itself of the Muslim invaders and restore European civilization, I hope Angela Merkel's corpse gets the same treatment.
|05 — Hillary bungles one. There's been some yin-yang interaction in our presidential race, too.Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's shoo-in nominee, has been trying to get some purchase on the idea of Donald Trump as an enemy of women. This is a stretch all by itself. Trump obviously likes women a lot, and the women he's been intimate with like him a lot, too.This is not just sexual objectifying, either. As an employer, Trump has promoted plenty of capable women — including his own daughter, who is a busy Executive Vice President in the Trump Organization.Mrs Clinton's worse problem, though, is Mr Clinton, who used his various positions of power to help himself to female employees, not always with their consent.This looks much worse nowadays than it did twenty years ago, when we first started learning about it. Since the 1990s our society has moved into a zone of extreme sexual punctiliousness and "affirmative consent" rules and legislation; a zone in which a college boy who winks at a college girl can find himself being investigated for sexual abuse.Bill Clinton's sexual transgressions look far worse now, under these new sensibilities, than they did then; and they looked bad enough then.Feminists today tell us that a woman's accusation of having been sexually molested must always be believed. In fact here's a quote from Mrs Clinton herself, December 3rd on Twitter, quote: "Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported," end quote.Hoo-kay, then we should believe Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones. And we all know — as they say in Ireland, even the dogs in the street know — that a key part of the Clinton Joint Career Project was his wife's covering for Bill to keep the Project viable, attacking and insulting his female accusers, threatening and probably bribing them to silence when possible.Mrs Clinton is coping in her usual brazen fashion with the blowback here, but you have to think she's cursing herself for ever bringing up the subject.
|06 — Muslim tail wags British dog. Back in October I made passing mention of a rule in Britain that any petition with enough signatures gets debated in Parliament. This is not actually a law, only a promise the Conservative Party made in their election manifesto.Back then, in October, the petition being debated was to, actual wording of petition, Stop allowing immigrants into the U.K. It got over 213 thousand signatures, and a perfunctory debate.Well, here's a new petition over there, with even more signatures. Wording, quote: "Block Donald J Trump from UK entry." It's got nearly 572 thousand signatures. Parliament will debate it on January 18th.How did such a daft petition get so many signatures? Well, there are close to three million Muslims in the U.K. Those 572,000 signatures represent less than twenty percent of that number; so if only one Muslim in six signed up, along with a few thousand non-Muslim Social Justice Warriors, that will do it.That's the problem with mass immigration. Eventually the numbers are so big, the tail can wag the dog.It's not very likely the Brits will ban Trump. The impression you get, watching these petition debates, is that the parliamentarians regard them as a dumb chore and are just going through the motions. Probably the Conservatives regret having put that promise in their manifesto.Looking at the list of open petitions, I see that the second most-signed one, right behind the one to ban Trump, is to, actual wording, "Stop all immigration and close the U.K. borders until ISIS is defeated." That has 456,000 signatures, up there with the ban-Trump's 572 thousand.But there you see the old problem with open, democratic societies: the problem of salience. Farm price supports are terrifically important to farmers, so they press for them relentlessly. For non-farmers the issue is way down the list of political priorities, so we don't bother about it. The farmers get their way, even though they are only two percent of voters.Same here. All the Muslims of Britain are rallied behind the anti-Trump petition. It's salient to them, highly salient. Probably a majority of non-Muslim Brits disagree, but they don't care anything like so much, so they don't bother signing the anti-Muslim petition, the one right behind the anti-Trump one.Mass immigration from unassimilable cultures creates big enclaves like this that can use the system to get their way, pressing issues that are particularly salient to them, however much against the interests of the native majority.Mass immigration from unassimilable cultures is, in fact incompatible with an open, democratic society. It is altogether a terribly, terribly bad idea — surely the worst idea of the modern age. But you knew that.
|07 — Nork nukes knocked. Radio Derb reported back in mid-December North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's boast that his country was ready to detonate a hydrogen bomb. On Wednesday this week the Norks claim to have done so; and indeed, earthquake monitors recorded a very powerful underground event near a known nuclear test site.Experts are skeptical about the claim. The event recorded doesn't seem to have been of H-bomb magnitude. You can actually boost up a regular fission bomb, an A-bomb, by adding in some fusion fuel, without turning the bomb into a proper fusion weapon. As we reported in December, there is an upper limit of about half a megaton for fission weapons; by boosting in this way with a dash of fusion fuel, you can increase yield by 50 percent, to three-quarters of a megaton. It's still a boosted fission weapon, though, not a proper fusion weapon. Possibly that's what the Norks have done.Whatever they've done, it's once again shown how inept our North Korean diplomacy has been. Or perhaps, to put it a bit more kindly, how much of a disadvantage a democratic nation is at when dealing with an exceptionally unprincipled dictatorship like North Korea.We've been cutting deals with North Korea since the first Bush administration, giving them this, that, and the other if they promise not to pursue nuclear-weapon development. We pulled our own nukes out of South Korea; we sent them food aid during the terrible famine in the mid-1990s; we sent Madeleine Albright and Jimmy Carter and that black basketball player Kim Jong Un likes; we turned a blind eye to their terrorism and kidnappings to get them to the negotiating table; we even supplied them with nuclear reactors; all in return for promises not to nuclearize. And all the time they were steaming ahead with nuke and missile development.You can't help but wonder if our Presidents and our Secretaries of State this past quarter-century have just been kicking the North Korea can down the road. Perhaps they've all realised how intractable a problem this is, and just fallen back on making these deals so they don't look totally ineffectual.I'd actually rather believe that of our people than believe they've really been so gullible as to fall for the Norks' repeated promises. Cynicism's not pretty; but in dealing with rogue states like North Korea, it's prettier than gullibility.If it turns out that the Norks didn't test a true fusion weapon this week, the question arises: Why would they declare having done so, knowing — as they must have done — that the claim can be falsified?An optimistic take on this is that it's desperation on the part of Kim, shoring up his domestic support with an extravagant claim.Since he came to power four years ago Kim has conducted some exceptionally ruthless purges of his Inner Party. Some analysts think the regime is unstable; that the purges were necessary because Kim doesn't have his father's and grandfather's skills at manipulating and appeasing factions in the elite.I'd like to believe that. The Kim regime is way overdue for a Ceaușescu moment. There must be a lamp-post in Pyongyang somewhere that would support Kim's weight.Unfortunately continued stability in North Korea is a very high priority for the ChiComs. As ticked off as they must be by this latest stunt, they'll likely keep propping up the regime.The ChiComs want their buffer state; our own politicians want to kick the can down the road; unless someone really smart and ambitious in the North Korean elite can pull off a coup, we're stuck with Kim for a couple more decades yet.
|08 — Miscellany. And now, our closing miscellany of brief items.Imprimis: Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two big boys of the Muslim Middle East, are at loggerheads. The Saudis, who are of course Sunni Muslims, but with a Shi'ite minority in their country, executed some Shi'ite troublemakers. A mob in Iran reacted by burning down the Saudi Embassy.It doesn't seem likely this will come to open war — as opposed to the proxy Sunni-Shi'ite wars going on in Syria and Yemen. If it does, the only thing to say is the thing Henry Kissinger said about the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, echoed by Michael Curtis over at American Thinker this week: "It's a pity both sides can't lose."I got ticketed by the multicultural sensitivity police a few years ago for writing, quote:
One doesn't want to be accused of inhuman callousness; but I am willing to confess, and believe I speak for a lot of … Americans … that the spectacle of Middle Eastern Muslims slaughtering each other is one that I find I can contemplate with calm composure.End quote. I still feel the same way. So ticket me again, I don't care.Item: Here at VDARE.com a few days ago I noted the last New York City homicide victim of 2015, a 16-year-old black lad shot fatally in the neck in a friend's apartment.The thing that caught my eye about the story was the victim's name: Jihad Jackson.Well, here's an early story from 2016, actually from Cincinnati.com, January 6th.The principal here is also black, but he's a perp, not a victim. While in Hamilton County Jail back in July awaiting trial on charges of shooting at two police officers, this fellow, according to prosecutors, sucker-punched a deputy, knocking him down and splitting his ear open.The motive for the attack, Assistant Prosecutor David McIlwain told jurors during opening statements in Hamm's trial, the motive was, quote, "He hates white people." Who could believe it?Again, what catches one's eye here is the perp's name: Quran Hamm. That's the fancy PC spelling of "Koran," Q-U-R-A-N, although mercifully Mr Hamm's parents (parent, whatever) left out the annoying apostrophes.There is of course nothing more shamefully wicked than racial and ethnic profiling. I respectfully suggest, however, that if approached in the street by a black stranger who identifies himself as Mecca Washington, you should run like the wind.Item: Finally, hero of the season, Englishman John Beeden, 53 years old, who has rowed across the Pacific Ocean.Mr Beeden left San Francisco on June 1st and rowed 7,400 miles to Queensland, Australia. He rowed for 15 hours a day, for 209 days. Quote from him: "It was 10, 15, 100 times harder than I thought it would be."If you'd asked me, Mr Beeden, I'd have said it couldn't possibly be harder than I thought it would be. Congratulations on coming safe ashore.Mrs Beeden tells us her husband will now be looking for new challenges. I salute his tremendous spirit; and, unable to find any adequate words of my own, offer him these from Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars until I die. … … Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
|09 — Signoff. That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening, and I hope the new year is treating you well so far.Striving to come up with some closing music that relates to rowing, in tribute to Mr Beeden, the best I can find is The Eton Boating Song, a traditional song of Eton Boys' School — the school on whose playing fields, according to the Duke of Wellington, the Battle of Waterloo was won.
Jolly boating weather, And a hay harvest breeze, Blade on the feather, Shade off the trees, Swing swing together, With your bodies between your knees …Stirring stuff, even if you're not an Old Etonian.More from Radio Derb next week.