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Pastor Andrew Webb | Fayetteville, North Carolina
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 Greater Freedom Demands Greater Self-Discipline: I was driving down Morgantown Road this morning when a sad incident reminded me of this truth. A man was walking his Lab on the left-side of the road coming towards me, and a girl was walking with her Pit Bull on the right hand side of the road. The Lab was wearing a leash, the Pit Bull was not. When the Pit Bull spotted the Lab, it immediately darted into the road to get to it, and was struck by one of the cars in my lane. The girl, horrified, ran into the road to get it and was nearly struck by the following car. At that point, all of the cars in both lanes came to a stop and turned on their hazard lights while she carried her dog out of the road and ran towards what I'm presuming was her house. One of the drivers called out offering to give her a lift to a vet, but she never turned around or replied. If a dog is untrained, it has to have an external restraint - either a leash or an invisible fence whenever it is outside. In this case, the lack of one almost got both the dog and its owner killed. There’s an obvious analogy here with people. Proverbs tells us, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Paul in Ephesians 6:4 emphasized that fathers had a responsibility to their children to “bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” If we refuse to follow this exhortation, then our children will not have the necessary inner moral restraint that stops them from dashing into danger or sin as easily as that Pit Bull ran into the road, and the consequences will often be equally dire. Unfortunately, we seem to live in an age that doesn’t believe that moral training is necessary or even desirable and actually counts the neglect of it as a sign of enlightenment. Unfortunately, as the tragedies that will inevitably result from this approach pile up, instead of demanding a return to prior principles of training, people demand that more and more leash laws be passed to restrain the behavior of untrained people. Many cry out against these laws, but unless we are willing to “train up our children in the way they should go” and gift them with changed hearts and the inner moral restraint that goes with them, our only alternative will be to multiply leashes and to make them shorter and shorter as self-discipline continues to dwindle. Perhaps nobody summarized this truth in the context of the American system of government better than Robert Winthrop (1833-1892), a Massachusetts Congressman and Speaker of the House of Representatives as well as a descendent of the first governor of Massachusetts, the Puritan John Winthrop, when he declared: "All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet. It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the State supporting religion. Here, under our own free institutions, it is Religion which must support the State." |
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Today I heard one of the oddest theological exchanges of my life when Rabbi Shmuley Boteach schooled Bryan Fischer in the sovereignty of God on Fischer's "Focal Point" radio program. Fischer, a director of the American Family Association as well...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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"Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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December 7th is a day of great importance to US history. President Roosevelt famously described December 7th, 1941 as a "a date which will live in infamy" because it was on that day that the Japanese successfully launched a devastating...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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I wrote the following 11 points a while back as reminders to myself. I meant them to be applied to my own pastoral ministry, but they strike me as equally applicable to everyone: When your ministry (or life) is full of big, pressing, chronic... [ ... ][ abbreviated | read original blog ] |
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"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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"Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." (Matthew 7:6)Commentary: "The ...lesson contained in this passage, is the importance of...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." (Matthew 6:24) Commentary: "Bob Dylan got it right when he sang,...[ abbreviated | read entire ] |
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