The following is an excerpt from Soldiers in Training by Brother Daryl Coats.
An article called "Who's in Charge Here?" in the Summer, 2006, edition of "the Wilson Quarterly" opens with these words: "The 20th century taught us that repressed desires are the source of human unhappiness. Now, with more possibilities for pleasure and fewer rules and constraints than ever before, the happy few will be those able to exercise self-control." The article continues with an excellent assessment of the dangers of modern temptations. One section deals with the removal of restraints. Very little keeps people from doing whatever they desire to do. Among those restraints that are weakened today are stigma (social shame for wrong doing), financial constraints (there is always credit), family (broken families provide little reason to do right), neighbors (they used to watch out for each other), and church (where sin has all but disappeared). But in the Bible, temperance (self-control) is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and "every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things" (1Corinthians 9:25). Where are the Christians who will re-establish the virtue of self-control?
Gary North, in "Millennialism and Social Theory" (p.136-137), demonstrates the worldly outlook of the Christian Reconstructionists. He labels those who disagree with his postmillennial doctrine as "pessimillenialists." That is, they are pessimistic because they do not believe that Christians will conquer the world before the physical return of Christ. One of the greatest faults he sees in premillenialists is their conviction that Christians should be looking for the return of Jesus Christ. According to him: "Christians were told to look skyward prior to the fall of Jerusalem... But their deliverance came in history... That one-time deliverance of the early Church is today long behind us. It is surely time for Christians to begin lookingforward, in time and on earth, for their deliverance, not upward." He even scolds an amillennialist for saying, "Come, Lord Jesus, come."
Tuesday's "Wall Street Journal" reviews a book called "A Perfect Mess" written by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman. It makes a case that messiness has its purposes and is not always superior to neatness. This is appealing to me--one who has always struggled with messy desk syndrome. On one occasion I was pointedly told that my messy desk was a sign of a lazy Southerner and it was evidence for my lack of accomplishing much with my life. Ouch! That hurt. Why not just press the blade into my stomach and twist?
Mathematics can be quite complex, yet one of the most basic divisions of mathematics is called arithmetic. You may better grasp what I am talking about when I say that the most basic operations of arithmetic are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. A grasp of these basic operations is a necessity for anyone who desires to grasp any of the more complex divisions of mathematics. Interestingly enough, the same things hold true for the Christian life. It can be quite complex, but at the same time we could break it down to the simplicity of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
