What are Church leaders to do? What things must Pastors and Elders consider? For a General who commands many different men, such as a Pastor or Elder, a great strategic view is needed. We need to start thinking of ourselves as Spiritual Military commanders. We need to see the big picture, as well as the little picture. Holding this conception in one head can be daunting, but it is necessary.

Church leaders need to read military theory. It is very helpful when conceptualizing spiritual warfare, to use the categories of warfare. There are many Principles of War that are useful. There is the Principle of Concentration, or bringing decisive forces to bear at the decisive moment to achieve victory. There is the Principle of Pursuit, whereby localized success is exploited. There is the Principle of Base Security, where the logistics and rear areas are hardened against attack, so that the offensive operations can be reinforced. Base security also means rest areas, where fatigue may be addressed by rest. Many Ministers are rendered ineffective through burn out. Secure Communications are another Principle, as is Movement.

One thing often overlooked is the Principle of Pressure. We like to talk about Concentration, arranging decisive force at the decisive moment, and yet this is hardly ever a reflection of successful spiritual warfare. We need to pay attention to the Principle of Pressure. An application of broad and deep Spiritual Pressure does several things.

1) A dedication to Pressure activates many people who do not care for politics. Many don’t get into Spiritual warfighting because they believe that Spiritual Conflict equals politics, and they want nothing to do with that. Political activism is one tactic, and has a place in Operations. Politics is not however the only thing, nor necessarily the main thing. The importance of political activism rises and falls, depending on which stage of the Operation one is.

2) Pressure means that the enemy has more dilemmas than they can solve with available human resources. One of the great successes of the Viet Minh was their ability to create more problems than the French, and then the Americans, could solve. The Americans won most of the gunfights in their long war in Vietnam, but they could not sustain action against a foe who could hit them from anywhere, and at any given moment. At the strategic level, the Viet Minh maintained the initiative throughout. With few exceptions, they picked when and were the fight would happen. Even when they lost the local action, such as Ia Drang, or Tet, they still maintained strategic initiative. There was no where in Vietnam they did not have freedom of movement. Conversely, the Americans maintained a substantial pressure in Cambodia and Laos, but failed to follow up initiative with Pursuit.

3) As Pressure is a principle of asymmetric conflict, the “battlefield” extends into the rear of the opposition. Supposedly secure things, such as schools, or the family kitchen table, or the participation rates of women in the workforce become problematic. Suddenly entertainment is a useful target. We push both against bad entertainment, and for good entertainments. By way of example, If porn can be attacked, both on the political front, as well as on the consumption front, the enemy will be overwhelmed.

4) This depth means that the enemies ability to have secure bases is compromised. They suddenly find themselves surrounded, cut off, under resourced, exposed. When the Spiritual insurgent pops up in unexpected places, resources must be diverted to defend things that were assumed to be safe. This forces a dispersion of resources which results in exposing other positions to Spiritual Attacks. A good example of this type of thing, is the commando raids engaged by the British SOE in Europe from 1941-1945. The Germans were forced to keep significant resources in France, Belgium and Holland that were not available for action in Africa or Russia. This bleeding of resources was a direct cause of Russian success in 1943.

5) Pressure exposes weakness, and weakness is to be exploited. If we have activated our manpower advantage, which is theoretically significant, then we have the ability to engage in Pursuit. One does not usually smash through the enemies strength, but rather through it weakness. Weakness is discovered by the application of Pressure. The 1942 Soviet victory at Stalingrad was one part attritional, and one part a classic double envelopment. Too many resources were dedicated into Stalingrad by the Germans, and both of the flanks of the 6th Army were exposed. It was these flanks that were exploited by Zubov and Konev subsequently.

We must consider our own advantages in the Spiritual War. What advantages does the Church have?

1) The power of God. Boom. The Lord fights for us, and we fight in Christ. Our tools are not the guns of the Soviets, nor the armaments of the Americans. Our Power is the Power of the One True God. This is the great advantage that Satan does not have. We must be a praying people.

2) In Canada and America, the Church possesses significant manpower reserves. We have many people who can be activated towards good works. This needs to be leveraged. We have historical analogies in the Viet Minh and the Russians. We significantly outnumber the foe.

3) The Church has very good communication networks. We have two thousand years of communications behind us. It is not only Pastors and Elders, but the personal networks that make this capability truly formidable. Pastors and Elders sit at many network nodes, but the whole Church is full of these overlapping networks. Because of the informal nature of most of these networks, most networks and most nodes operate well under the threshold of attention. Very few non-Christians have anything approximating an understanding of our communications. These networks and nodes exist across denominational lines. These are decentralized, organic, and fluid. This is a capability that we need to intentionally exploit. It is a great strength.

4) The Church has motivated leadership. Motivated leadership means motivated people. Most Church leaders are doing something well. These somethings may be thought of as contributing somehow to Pressure. For every Elder that is on fire, there will be ten or twenty households also on fire for the mission, whatever it might be. Every Pastor that is on fire will have five or ten Elders that are on fire. Good leadership empowers individual actions, which aggregate over time. Where motivated leadership does not exist, then encouragement of the leadership becomes the great task. men go through many times of discouragement. But in the Lord, these can be recovered for good use.

5) The Church has the advantages of diverse location, talent, and cultural penetration. There are very few places in North America without a Church. We have a great number of talented individuals who need only some leadership. These need to get on mission. There is also almost no segment of society that does not have some Christian presence. We have poor folk and rich. Our people work in tech, energy, agriculture, government, education, and the great variety of service industries. We have people placed everywhere. The leftists do not have this advantage. This is something to keep an eye on. We can do many different things all at once.

6) The Church has extremely good intel. This is a point where #4 and #5 above intersect with #3. We know things faster, and can disseminate more thoroughly any useful information. Our networks are international, as well. The general population knows nothing about Muslims butchering Christians in Nigeria, but we know. During the Cold War, we had far better penetration behind the Iron Curtain than did the western government intelligence agencies. This capability has grown over time. We know with a far greater degree of exactitude the inner workings of the Canadian Liberal party than they do us. The trucker convoy was a demonstration of such a thing. The government in Ottawa was actually blind to what was really going on, and who was doing what. They did not see that coming, and did not know how the networks of communication and organization were working. That was an instructive moment for the observer. In the current Alberta separatist situation, the government focus has been almost exclusively on detecting money flows from America, which do not exist. They have missed the obvious thing, and cannot see it.

7)The Church has the signal ability to turn enemies into brothers.2 We have a recruiting mechanism which cannot be easily countered. This is the Gospel. Through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, men and women come to life and faith in Jesus. These are new men and women. When someone gets saved, they change dramatically. New loves replace old loves, and it is super natural. This power of God cannot be countered by our enemy. We routinely recruit former enemies into our brothers and sisters. The Church is like a mustard seed, which is a very small seed. This small seed grows into a very great tree.

We are not actually in a position of weakness

I have studied insurgency. We have all the makings here to set the conditions for victory.

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P.S. Some thoughts to consider.

One thing to also consider, is that we should keep an eye out for tactical methods that our people enjoy. That which we enjoy will be more likely successful. Psalm-singing is a good example. This is a tactic we enjoy. We are drawing other people into this love. As other Churches, such as our Baptist and Evangelical neighbors discover this, then they will self-start down the paths of Pressure. Hospitality is another such tactic. Joyful feasting is something we enjoy, and so we should double down on it.

Singing Psalms especially terrifies our enemies. Satan understands that a people who love singing those will become very difficult to suppress

Humor is also one of our great tactics. The devils cannot stand to be mocked. This is why Solzhenitsyn was kicked out of the Soviet union. His sardonic humor was too much for the Communist Central Committee.

There are three conceptual levels of conflict to keep in mind, the Tactical, the Operational, and the Strategic. These all overlap and interact with each other, but are distinguishable from each other. By way of example, take our fight against pornography.

Tactically, we refuse to look at it. We argue with our friends that it is bad. We confess and repent where we have sinned, and encourage others to do so. We strengthen our people against it by teaching from the Word about how to be upright, and how to be strong in the Lord in marriage, or in singleness. Prayer, confession, repentance, refusal, conversations, these are tactics.

On the Operational front, all of these tactics are then pointed at a target. Let us say that we target pornhub as an institution. Any information we get via our intelligence networks is passed on to our MPs. All bad press is pushed to News reporters. Social media attacks. Et al. Trying to get men elected to office in Ottawa and Quebec, with a goal of shutting them down. Small regulatory attacks that render the business profitless are an excellent tactic. Death by a thousand cuts is a useful idea. Any true story to harm the reputation of that institution is on the table.

On the Strategic front, we are aiming at the Supremacy of Christ in Canadian sexual morality. We are aiming at National and institutional repentance and righteousness.

This is an example of how to conceptualize what I’m talking about.

This template can be used on any issue. Abortion, MAID, divorce, usurious taxation, freedom of worship, drug addiction... Marxism, education...

Currently, I believe our principle weakness that we must overcome is the activation of our manpower advantage. Too few are on mission.3

There many problems with this idea, and I aim to meander through the paths of its refutation. Take this essay for what it is, a leisurely stroll through idiocy in an effort to demonstrate other, better, and truer things.

The problems with Self-as-the-Good are legion. If Self is the ultimate good, how would we know this to be so? There are innumerable instances of Self walking around right now. Which one is paradigmatic? By what standard would we know this? If there is a rule by which to determine this, then we have found a thing that is higher than Self. Self appears to be subordinate to its Ideal, which is clearly not Self itself.

If Self is the highest Good, then we should expect an argument for this truth. In order for the argument to be coherent, then the argument would have to bring proofs. Sharp eyes might already spot the impossibility of this task. Any argument for the supremacy of Self is by the nature of the case a self-refutation. Arguments assume the authority of proofs. If there were such proofs, they would be Other than Self, and superior to it. Proof assumes rationality. Rationality has a claim on everyone, and is other than self. Proof assumes communication from one Self to another. We already have the refutation in the idea of Proof, and now we have it in the assumption of communication.

To speak is to impart meaning to another. Things that are communicable are other than pure self. Language is only possible in a world where there is meaning that precedes and is prior to the speaker. Language is shared, and the grammar is replete with the Other. This presupposes That, and the things communicated are ideas that are universal. A thing cannot be communicated if it is not universal.

Is there no Being outside of Self? If the Selfishists are serious about this, then we may call them silly. The fact that we exist, and call them silly, is sufficient refutation. These are not serious men, although they may be Buddhists.

I am the writer, and you are the reader. At a certain level, the reader must submit himself to the writer. The act of reading the words of another is an act of submission to the imagination or thought of another. He who submits to another does not believe in the supremacy of self. Reading is, if anything, an affirmation of the goodness of the other.

These are categories, reader and writer. Category is a thing that denotes that which is like and that which is unlike. To distinguish is to acknowledge that there are things outside of one thing, and to acknowledge that there are things within another thing. If Self is the supreme thing, then there should be some way to resolve all the claims that various things or ideas make on Self. Other- as an idea- should not exist in such a world. The world as we experience it refutes the Selfishists.

Rebellion against the authority of Other is the root of the idea of Self as the highest Good. Selfishists are not such on account of intellectual probity, but on account of degenerate, presumptuous, selfishness. This is a moral fault dressed up as an intellectual problem. To quote a middle-aged rock song, “It’s a three dressed up as a nine.” and they are wasting our time.

The modernist and the post-modernist are morally dead, and they wish to intellectualize their condition into the position of a virtue. These are in love with themselves, but cannot truly love anyone else. These bankrupt ideas have given us the modern man. Radical individualization is the social air we breath. Intellectualized selfishness is the argument for abortion and euthanasia. It is the argument for divorce. In the Church, it is the argument for historical amnesia.

And yet, the authority of the Other remains. We live in a fractured age in the West. This is not the first time the West has fractured. We have done this before. We are on the cusp of Post-Post Modernity. Praise the Lord and pass the salt. And yet, this is indeed a fractured age in the West.

Many of us have returned in some form to older paths, in an attempt to find the way forward. I count myself as one of these. We are going back so that we can go forward. The next Christendom will be built on top of the good foundations of the old Christendom. Modernist rubble will not do.

There are some who have given themselves up whole-heartedly to the evil of the self. Their works are obvious, and obviously bad. Most people fall into another category, however. These do not much care about these things. They will gladly follow along with whoever gains the supremacy in our cultural moment. Vast swaths of Canada merely go along to get along. These masses will be complacent putty in the hands of the victor. Ours is an age of fracture, and fracture means competition for the right to impose the next age. I am hopeful that the side of Right shall prevail. The victory of Right is an eventual theological certainty.

Pure self is insufficient. We are made by God in His own image, and we need others. There are many others, some of whom are doing well. We must acknowledge the growing might of the Church in the Third World. Rich bankers in Davos know nothing of these things. Sheiks on silk cushions in Arabia do not know them. And there is little these can do to stop the ascendency of the Third World Church. God is with the little people. He is for the oppressed. Our faithful brothers are ascendant. They are not making this ascent on the wings of Self, but on the wings of Divine Love.

Jesus puts all self-absorption to death on His cross. That very act of Redemption was the ultimate and cosmic rejection of self. This was not the Self, it was self-sacrifice. I do not wish to restrict the words “self-sacrifice” to mere metaphor, although this certainly is a metaphor. Christ’s self-giving was a sacrifice. It was the covenant obedience that Adam our father refused. It was the propitiation that Levi’s worship prefigured. It was the cleansing of the fouled, the wrath of God satisfied. It was the union of redeemed men into Christ, and thus drawn up into the divine love of the Trinity. It was life for the dead, the rebirth of the world. It was, and yet remains, all this.

Christs self-sacrifice is humanity reborn, reordered, enloved. We in Christ are the new Nation. We are His royal priesthood. We are citizen-soldiers in the Empire of Heaven. We are drawn up into the Love with which the Triune God loves. We are drawn here by the mighty acts of Christ on our behalf.

Each of us, in our own place are imitating the self-sacrifice of Christ. It is by this self-giving that we conquer all before us. Divine Love is our great weapon, our means, our end. We die and we love the world back to the love of her God. Divine love is a rejection of the radical self, for in the Divine Love, the self must die. And in dying it is raised to imperishable life by the power of the One True God. In Christ, the self becomes true. The true self is found within the great Other, who is Christ.

Our highest Good is not rebellious self, but God Himself.

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Institutions of higher education should be just that. They ought to be centers of higher learning. The trivium is for primary education. Higher education begins with the four; Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. All higher learning begins with these, and from there is goes to Theology and Philosophy. The mechanical arts are not “higher” in this sense. Being the mechanical arts, they belong to the Four. There really is nothing wrong with engineering, by way of example, but it is not “higher”, at least not when you have the study of God in view.

We are afflicted by a higher education that is in fact lower. Modern college lowers a man and makes of him an animal. Modern higher education does not make a man more human, it makes him less.

The grotesque pornography of my home town college proves this. There was nothing in this art display to raise the soul to the worship of the divine. Immoderate displays draw no man towards honour. Banality does not summon forth nobility, nor the virtues. To worship human form through the means of gross sensuality is to become animal.

It is as if the leftist has taken the ikons of the Orthodox and stripped them of their reverence, and pointed the image towards earth. I reject the ikons of the orthodox on the ground of the second commandment, the leftist rejects the direction of the piety. It is grotesque for men to worship themselves. It is worse for them to worship the worst version of themselves.

Gramski had a point. The most effective way to capture an institution is via the path of the long, slow march. Christian men must redouble their efforts to recapture all the institutions. To do otherwise would be to surrender civilization to the barbarians. We have done this before; it is high time to do it again.

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A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity1

and

Do not forsake your friend and your fathers friend2

What does a man do when his friends are the potential cause of reputational or financial harm to himself? What happens when a mans friend comes under public attack for righteousness sake? In the Church, it is a racing certainty that the slanders of alleged brothers hurt far worse than the attacks of crazy leftists. These blue-on-blue attacks happen not infrequently. Betrayal hurts.

Worse than betrayal by those further out, is abandonment by ones close friends. Too commonly, ones close friends and allies forsake a man. I have seen men flee each other like rats fleeing a sinking ship, merely to avoid reputational harm that is feared. Proximity to a besieged friend is proximity to danger. Proximity to danger is often a matter of perception, rather than a matter of reality.

In the age of lawfare and doxxing, our perception of potential harms far outstrips the actual force that these threats are capable of. It is true that the force of a threat is inversely proportionate to its actuality. It is no good to take council of your fears; they are liars.

Even if the fears are realized, of what should I fear? I have been wise in the selection of my associates. I fear no dishonor for their sakes. I trust that they will not involve me in scandal where the material cause is their evil. My principle concern ought to be that I should be a good friend, and involve them in no infamy due to my own bad actions.

Let me state the obvious. Do not keep company with fools. Do not become close friends with those of whom good men would be ashamed. If you have been such a fellow, then well might you fear the infamy that is the natural due of those who keep company with such men. Young men need to hear this often. We live in the age of the internet persona. Avoid the company of anons, fools, rakes, and worthless men.

Elsewhere I have written on the nobility of true friendship. One of the most noble expressions of friendship is to stick by a costly friend. A good man will stand with a friend under siege. This type of courage, to stand in the line of fire on account of a friend is a rare bird indeed. Men will fight on the ground of their own choosing. Having the ground picked for you is a much harder pill to swallow. Drawing fire to your own self, in a fight that a coward would easily avoid, is a nobler thing altogether.

We live in an age gone mad. Moral orthodoxy is all an inversion of true moral orthodoxy. In our situation, social shame is the main lever that the madmen use to enforce their orthodoxy. Good men are the special targets of shame campaigns. Good men respond to shame, because shame is a good thing, in the service of truth. Good men are therefore vulnerable to shame that is twisted by the devils. It is precisely this shame, and the fear of it, that is a most effective weapon in the hands of the devils.

And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him-a threefold cord is not quickly broken.3

The tactic of doxxing is a shame tactic. The point is to isolate a man from his friends and to force him into terror. A frightened animal makes mistakes that a rational man easily avoids. Watch a rabbit cased by dogs. If it plays into its strengths, it will escape and live. If it panics, it is dead. The strength of men is in their combinations, not in their isolations. The devils know this, and this is why they use shame-tactics. Why not? It is an effective tool.

How then do we effectively mitigate shame-tactics? First off, do nothing alone. If you are the leader, draw good men into your orbit. If you are naturally reticent, be drawn into the orbit of better men. In these various combinations, you must shame-proof yourselves.

Be good men. Do nothing, publicly nor privately that you should be ashamed of. Do not be underhanded in your speech or dealings. High levels of integrity are required of good men. Do this.

Seek to defend the honor of your friends. It is bad form to defend ones’ own honor too vigorously. It is the height of honor to defend the reputation of a good man. The impulse to defend a good man is a marker of high nobility. Do this.

Avoid the company of bad men. Do not knit your money nor your heart to men that a good man would be ashamed to defend. Bad company corrupts good morals. Do not do this.

Be hard-headed and soft-hearted. Treat everyone with candor. Do not lie for a friend. If he is a good man, he will not hold you in high estimation for that. If he is a bad man, see my previous point. Do this.

Do not let go of the main point, which is the elevation of the Glory of God in all things. The main point must always be the main point. To quote Michael Sweet, “We are soldiers under Gods’ command.” Do not take council of your fears. A good soldier listens to his own officers, not the propaganda of the foe. Be a good friend.

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And there I stood, book in one pocket and phone in the other. Which should I choose? The addict in me screamed for the phone. The curmudgeon screamed for the book. As it happens, the curmudgeon is a feisty fellow. Hamilton, Jay, and Madison it was.

Hamilton is a very fine writer. So too are Jay and Madison. These fellows make substantial arguments for their vision of Republican Federalism. One of the more striking arguments made, is that Federal Republicanism can check the tendency of cabals to get away with corruption much better than pure democracies can. As it happens, I do agree with Hamilton on this point. Pure democracy is trash. The voices of the least wise and capable ought not have the same weight in public affairs as those of the most wise and substantial.

And yet I find weakness in this argument. I suppose that the weakness is to be found in the supposition that there shall be those who are substantial and wise in any given nation at all. Albertan experience in the Canadian confederation has not proved the existence of good men. I think it is fair to say that there does not appear to be any real restraints on the corruptocracy in Ottawa.

Parliamentary attempts to hold the government to account failed in every case prior to covid. They never stood a snowballs chance in hell during covid. Post-Trudeau, PM Carney can do what he likes, and nothing can stop him. He has unfettered access to the bank account, and Brookfield is cashing in. Popular attempts at reigning in the corruptocracy have faired no better. The truckers convoy did not in fact force the thieves and tyrants out of power. No restraint on their wickedness was forthcoming post-protest. I love the protestors, but their main effect was on the mass of the lethargic population, and not at all on the men who wield power.

The Alberta Independence movement has not provoked the federalistas to greater exercises of public righteousness. Rather, the vultures are circling the carcass of a once great nation, ready to devour the fat. The current government is scandal-proof. There is no infamy that will separate them from their voters. No perfidy is sufficient to force their own partizans to detach the cruel fingers of despots from the purse-strings of the taxpayer. No one even blushes anymore to be caught “in flagrante delicto”. Were one to re-write Dostoevsky’s great novel, it would simply be titled “Crime”.

Clearly, Hamilton was wrong. Great federal unions do not check cabal-corruption. I suppose that such a federal union might check the tendency of nations towards the plundering of their own people, but it is certainly not necessary. If the best men of a nation have the power of the government in their hands, and these hypothetical men are indeed good men, then perhaps Hamilton has a point. I dare anyone to find such saints in Canada.

We are left with two options. Either we have no good men, or we have good men who are not in charge. If the latter, then we are fools for failing to elevate them. If the former, then we are fools for failing to be men. If the latter, then we must conspire to get the powers of government into their hands. If the former, then no powers are safely in any hand, and we’d better give up the whole project of being a nation. It seems to me bizarre that a nation of some forty millions cannot find three hundred and ten good men. Abraham had a similar conversation about Lots’ hometown. We all know how that went down.

Shall we repent of our rascality? Are we finally done with scoundrels? Are we resolved to become good men, or shall we float along like Abrahams nephew, blithely and intentionally unaware of what is going on?

And thus I heartily commend having a paperback in a pocket. Without such a thing, these ruminations would never have been birthed into this publication.

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In answering this question, we must acknowledge that we have begun with assumptions. We have assumed that there is such a thing as civilization. We have assumed that there is a form of civilization that conforms to truth, and possibly several forms that do not. We have also assumed that civilization is both desirable and possible.

Is there such a thing as Civilization? If we admit that it exists, then we must also admit certain other principles as being true, in order that it be so. Civilization is, by its nature, the traditions of a people by which they live, share common life, values, and Telos.

If there is such a thing as Civilization, then the members must share in certain assumptions. These must share an assumed Order, an assumed Authority, and a shared Story. In order for there to be shared Order, rationality and a belief in coherence must prevail.

Darwin can never be more than a heretic against civilization. His theories undermine rationality, order, and all belief in coherence. His espousal of ultimate random-ness is a repudiation of Telos. He is a heretic because he has rationalized irrationality. If his theory were true, then he could not have expressed it, and we could not have understood him, nor anything else.

The fact that we can understand and be understood demonstrates the truth of truth. Language is, in its very nature, a proof of Meaning. In saying this, I am being wholly unoriginal. Others have said these things to me, and I understood them. The fact that I understood is proof of understanding, which thing cannot exist in an irrational universe. That which is really random cannot have meaning in either its whole, or in its many parts.

If language, and its ancestor, Idea, do in fact exist, then we are approaching the mountain of Meaning. For there to be meaning in language, there must be something that is. This thing must be communicable. There must also be those who communicate meaning, from one to an other. Idea must be a thing that exists, if it can be communicated.

If Idea can be communicated, it must belong to the province of Universals. Idea is something other than the speaker. It is outside of the instance of the speech, yet it is also intrinsic to it. A man who talks to another man is communicating ideas that are above himself. These ideas exist, even if he ceases to exist.

Take for instance the fact of chair-ness. I may write thus and so about a chair. I may write about a particular chair. Perhaps it has a rough wooden seat and a high back. The reader knows the particulars of this chair because the reader shares in the knowledge of this instance of chair. It is also possible to speak of chairs in the abstract, as referring to the idea of chair, or to the type of thing known as chair. When we speak of chair-ness, we are generally understood. Either mode of speaking about chair, particular or universal, is equally sensible to the reader. The reader has experience of instantiations of chair, and he also has rational perception of chair as a type.

The fact of chair-ness demonstrates order, rationality, and something universal. The fact of meaning in language demonstrates the same. If Idea can be communicated, it must be something universal, something other than and greater than the particular expression of it.

Order, Authority, Telos and Story are transmitted by word. These things require word in order to be shared. This sharing is natural, it is necessary. If men do not share these things, then they cannot be said to share in the same civilization. Christendom and the Caliphate do not share the same Order. These most certainly do not share the same Authority. If one wishes to say that they share the same Story, then one must also confess that they tell it very differently.

Secular atheism is a heresy against civilization precisely because it denies Order, Authority, and Telos. The story that the atheists tell is entirely too plastic to be said to be one thing. It is a scattering of random. Atheism is abominable and un-civilized because it is false. Atheism is a rebellion against One. It is an embrace of the many. It is the worship of the particular. Everything is reduced down to chance, blind fate, an irreducible meaninglessness. As it is a devotee of the particular, it has lost the coherence of Universals, and has lost all Telos.

Islam has the opposite problem. In its embrace of the One, it has rejected the many. By enslaving Arab souls to One, they have lost Two and Three. The basic muslim confession is that god is One. They have lost number. Sharia is the rejection of the individual, the other.

A God who is only One cannot make anything that is other. He has no prior knowledge of “other” if he is alone. He thus becomes a god in process, if he is anything at all.

In order to be consistent with their confession of god as One, muslims ought to either confess that there is something higher than their god who can account for number and other, or they must confess that nothing has been created by their god. If the first proposition is true, then we have nothing more than the duodecads of Valentinius. If the second, then all being is already in god. We are in god already, and nothing in Islamic theology makes any sense. Islamic theology dissolves down into Gnosticism on the one hand, or into pantheism on the other. That no muslim agrees with these inescapable conclusions is merely a demonstration of institutionalized hypocrisy. If the Islamic god is true, then we are left with an arbitrary choice between two absurdities.

Individuation is obvious. There are numbers beyond One. Math proves Islam false. If there is being other than god, then the Islamic god is false. Being falsifies their idea of god.

Language proves atheism false. There is meaning beyond the individual. The fact that any two men can speak coherently to each other proves that there is indeed universal meaning. Coherence falsifies Darwin. When atheists appeal to any concept at all, they are acting as if the universe is something other than a sheer blind evolutionary deterministic thing. These too, are guilty of hypocrisy.

If Number and Being falsify Islam, and Coherence and Universals falsify Darwin and his atheist apparatchiks, then where are we? One cannot account for the many. Many cannot account for the One. On what good ground may we have a civilization?

We must embrace both the individual and the universal. Our system must account for the Facts and for Idea. We must account for Universals and for Particulars. It appears that we must have both the One and the Many, and have them without losing either. I speak not of a purely rational attempt at arbitrary balance between two wildly divergent things. I speak of the Trinity.

True Civilization is only possible in a world created and governed by the Triune God, the One True God revealed to us in the scriptures.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God spoke everything into being. This speech was the person of the Eternal Son, Jesus Christ, who like a master workman was at His Fathers’ right hand from the beginning. The person of the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters, making order rise in place of chaos.

The Eternal Father is the Creator. The Eternal Son is the Word, the effectual might of His Father. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings unity to the disparate elements, the one who is the Breath of Life. The Son maintains all things by His word of power. All things have their maintenance and coherence in His wisdom. All authority resides in the Father, and is given to the Son.

These three persons are One. They are one in divinity, three in person. They have the same essence. Each does not have a similar essence, but the very same. This is not an essence that they share, as if it were a pie, each getting one third. Each of them is absolutely Divine, and all of them together are God. The persons are not different modes of the One. The Son is eternally the Son, the Father is eternally the Father, the Spirit is eternally the Spirit. They are Three and One. This is a pure and perfect unity that does not obscure or diminish any of the Persons. The Divine mystery of the Trinity is a perfect and eternal union of the One and the Many. All of the simplicity of the One is present, as is the individuation of the Three.

The Triune God of the scriptures is the explanation for the world as it is. A God who is both One and Three is sufficient ground as an explanation of the One-ness and the Many-ness of creation. When God created the universe, he was not doing something that was outside his own experience. In eternity there was always an eternal Other within the Godhead. For God to make anything other, was for Him to do something that came from within His own being. Other is intrinsic within the Trinity.

Creation is also coherent. Laws, Rules, Order and Telos exist as things outside of the particulars. The Particulars adhere to these laws. Gravity has a way of dropping apples on Englishmen. These laws of physics do not erase distinctions between things on which they act. Particular being is not annihilated by Universal law. Both exist, and exist at the same time, in the same place. The laws of math do not erase numbers. Both the law and the individual number exist. You can annihilate a particular man, but you have not eliminated mankind thereby. The destruction of a blade of grass does no harm to Grass-ness. One might attempt the suppression of an idea, but no tyrant can suppress Idea.

True Civilization must be grounded in the Triune God of the Bible. Trinity is the only coherent explanation for everything. All universals and all particulars can be accounted for in this world, as made by this God.

Individuals can only have a just civilization into which they belong, in so far as it is ordered according to the Word of the One True God. A just civilization must be one ordered according to the True Story. Genuine, grateful homage must be rendered to God. True civilization can only begin when it begins at the starting point, which is Christ Jesus himself. To speak of civilization is to speak of Christendom. Christendom is a Good Thing.

Under the holy banners of Christendom, the many and the one may cohere. Here is no fragmentation of the One, nor an annihilation of the particular. In Christ, and in His Holy Kingdom, nations and people have their right place.

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During the question and answer period of the townhall in which I participated on the 13th, someone asked me how my eschatology affected my politics. To which I answered, “Decisively.” Being post-mil is to be a man who takes God at his word regarding his promises.

In Isaiah, the Lord promises that the knowledge of the earth shall cover the earth. Of what quality shall this filling be? To what extent are we promised this great thing? Look at the words on the page. We are promised that the knowledge of the Lord shall be as common on the earth as the water is on the sea.

How much of the sea is covered in water? This is not a trick question. There is no special pleading here. In case you’ve never been, the entire sea is wet. All of it is water. If you were to put a boat in at Prince Rupert, you could conceivably float along to New Zealand. Perhaps if you took a right turn after China, you might make India or South Africa. It is really wet out there. Magellan got famous for not quite circumnavigating it. The whole ocean is completely wet. It is all water.

Thus I take it as a promise, that the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, and this before He returns. I look around, and not all of the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is covered in water. The only rational conclusion to be drawn from this is that we are not yet at the end. We are not even close to the end. There is much work to do.

Carry on.

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I am for Albertan Independence.

Why would a man want to break apart an old political federation and look to replace it with another one? Are we not in danger of replacing one tyrant with another? What is it that I believe that we should want?

Political associations and national borders are things that come and go. Canada is not some eternal principle that must exist. This nation had its founding in 1867. Before that, we were all a British colony. Alberta was once owned by a company. Before that, various tribes attacked each other, taking whatever the strength of their warbands could seize. Each of us has ancestors who came here from somewhere else, and many of those nations no longer exist. Such is the way of nations. They exist to fill a purpose, and when they lose their purpose, they go. Canada was formed as a Confederation of British Colonies. Canada was formed to serve the interests of Upper Canada, which is now called Ontario.

Confederation is structured in such a way so as to render our votes as being utterly meaningless. When was the last time Alberta votes mattered in the affairs of our nation? When Stephen Harper said that we had a “seat at the table” following the 2006 election, one might be forgiven for believing him. He certainly was sincere in believing that he had finally accomplished that very thing. Events have proved that sentiment to have been nothing more than smoke on a rainy day.

At no time has Alberta ever had a meaningful seat at the table. When Alberta and Saskatchewan joined confederation in 1905, the union we had enjoyed with Saskatchewan was terminated by PM Laurier. He did this in order to prevent us from ever challenging the Upper Canadian dominance of our country. The Laurentian Elites have dominated us from their twin-towered cities of Ottawa and Toronto ever since. In the eyes of the eastern elites, we are nothing more than a satellite who orbits their center of mass.

Life as a satellite would be agreeable indeed, if the interests of the center and of the satellite were in harmony. It has become increasingly clear to me that the interests of the Laurentian elites and the interests of Alberta are diverging.

In relation to the East, our population has grown. We have grown in relation to the rest of the country, but our say in things has not grown with our people. We are chronically under-represented in Parliament. Moreover, we have seen that all elections are decided by the time the votes are counted in Ontario. Albertan votes do not need to be counted to determine who shall govern.

Moreover, we generate economic wealth well beyond our share in the population. It is clear that we are a colony who exists to fund the expensive nonsense being driven by the elites. Indeed, Alberta pays about 17% of all federal taxes. We are projected to pay about 95 billion dollars in federal taxes this year. From 2004 until 2024, we contributed 285 Billion dollars to the federal government above what we received in equalization payments. I understand not all taxes are part of the equalization scheme, but these numbers represent a monstrous transfer of capital from hard working Albertans into the pockets of the Eastern Oligarchs.

And what have we gotten for all this money? What has our money purchased? Our money seems to have purchased nothing more than an assault on our way of living.

Ottawa has used laws and regulations to strangle our business. They cannot share power with us. They know that generating wealth is power. Ottawa worships power. The suppression of our economic liberty is a type of oppression. It is a slow garroting of our people. At first one feels only a slight suffocation. The inconvenience of being strangled eventually gives way to the shock of the realisation that there is air, and I cannot breath it.

Relentless laws and regulations against our productivity are theft.

Taxation without proper representation is theft. “You shall not steal” is one of Gods finest commandments. It applies to each of us individually, and it also applies to governments. If a government takes money from its citizenry and then uses it against the best interests of those citizens, that is a type of theft. Corruption is also theft. Where did all the money wasted on the Arrivescan app come from? What about all the grants handed out to liberal supporters? All the jobs created for party functionaries? The budget of the CBC, the liberal propaganda machine, comes from our pockets. We are paying the wages of propagandists who hate us and our way of life. Where does all that money come from? Does it not come from we, the body politic?

What about currency inflation? We are in the midst of an inflationary disaster. Twenty years ago, everything cost half of what it does now. In terms of purchasing power, you need 2$ to buy what cost 1$ in 2000AD. The inflation we experienced twenty years ago was nothing to sneeze at either. Recently, the Government used a fake pandemic as an excuse to hyper-inflate our economy by pumping in what it called “stimulus”. Do you remember that? Inflation is nothing more than theft. The money with which we trade and by which we assign value, has lost half its value in two decades. The value of our money has plummeted. There are too many dollars available, relative to transactions in the economy. This is theft.

Wages have not grown to match this inflation, and we all feel the pain. This pain is the natural consequence of a policy of theft. God required sound money of his people in Leviticus 19:35-36, which is also repeated in Proverbs 20:10. True justice in Canada would demand that we have sound money.

Inflation hurts the poor and the elderly disproportionally to the rich. An investor can hide behind his rising stock valuations. A businessman can raise his prices, and in such an economy would be a fool not to. The poor cannot raise his wages. The elderly cannot increase his pension. A government bureaucrat need not concern himself with inflation at all, for he has his hand in the pot to begin with.

Were I to list all of the many plunderings of our wealth by Ottawa, we would be here all night. What then do we get? What have the federal thieves given us in exchange for all our wealth?

We pay for abortion, euthanasia, and transvestism. We are paying the salaries of the prophets of the Woke with our taxes. We pay for surveillance against ourselves. We pay for Parliamentarians who make laws outlawing the teaching of Christian sexual ethics. We pay for Parliamentarians to make laws to take our guns away. They only want to take our guns away so that they can do to us what they are not brazen enough to do to an armed and free citizenry.

We paid for political repression against truckers, who took their own welfare in hand, and peacefully protested the most egregious and damning betrayal of this nation. I speak of course, of the covid hoax. We paid to have a Prime Minister wear funny socks. Canada is unserious.

National defence is neglected. National honour is destroyed. Civil liberties are almost gone. We use the law to impoverish our fellow countrymen, instead of using it to protect his property and dignity.

Canada was once a Christian Nation. We inscribed Psalm 72 inside the Parliament buildings. In Psalm 72 we read about the Rule of Jesus, our Lord.

“May he have dominion from sea to sea,

and from the River to the ends of the earth!”

This is inscribed on the walls of those buildings. Our fathers once called Jesus “Lord”. They put the solemn declaration of His eternal and comprehensive rule over all of the seen and unseen world on the walls of our Parliament buildings. Since then, our nation has rebelled against the Lord. We are the lesser sons of greater sires. We are now the people of Psalm 2 who say,

“Let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.”

We are these kinds of people. Canada is a rebellious nation. We need a national repentance.

What of the floor-crossings that PM Carney has been scheming at? He could not get power by honorable means, and so he gets it by guile.These defections are one of the reasons why I want Alberta Independence.

Albertan votes do not matter within Confederation. Confederation has become nothing more than a grubbing after the power to oppress one’s neighbor. These are folks who desire to be within the inner circle of Power. Power is the drug that they crave. PM Carney is shrewd. Like recognizes like, and he knows what he is doing.

This is Taxation without Representation. We, like the Irish pre-1922, have a token presence in Parliament. Nothing we say, believe, or hold dear matters. We are irrelevant in our own confederation. All our affairs are being run by a foreign power in Ottawa. All our institutions are under assault. Bill C-9, which will be signed into law soon, is an attack on our faith. The various anti-industry laws and taxes are designed to impoverish us. Why should we go along with these provocations?

In an Independent Alberta we have a chance to defend the unborn. We can actually outlaw murder. Euthanasia can be once again made illegal. We actually can protect our children from the mutilations of the trans movement. We have the opportunity to reject extortionate taxation, and to found our civil government on the principles of restraint, justice, and a closer alignment to Gods word. We have a chance to plant liberty in our soil. We have the opportunity to create a Just Nation for our children and our grandchildren. Why should we not take our future into our own hands?

It has long been clear to me that Christians have failed to read the political terrain of Canada. We might vote. Few of us do that. We then discover our vote does not matter. And we moan about the futility of voting. We see that the politicians are corrupt, and we say so, but we will do nothing.

What then should we do?

1. We should pursue true repentance, each of us, for our sins of sloth and public carelessness. Laziness is a sin. It has consequences. The perilous moment we find ourselves in is the result of the laziness of Christians. We bought the lie of secularist safety, and we now know that we have been had. Secularism was always a ploy to enslave a free people by guile. Vigilance is always the price men must pay to maintain liberty. We must repent of laziness, and embrace public life. We must be public Christians again.

2. I believe we ought to put our weight behind Albertan Independence. We should want the Lord to answer the prayer that we all pray every day, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.” We should want a more righteous and just society. Does the Lord bless the unrighteous? No, he does not. We, of all people, should embody our Lords command to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” How better to love your neighbor, than to strive for justice on his behalf? Let us have a just and free society. We cannot save a nation that does not want to be saved, but we can make a new one. We have the chance to found our Nation on principles of Justice that aligns with what God says about Justice in his word.

3. The obvious thing to do is to infiltrate each CA in every riding. Then we put our candidates into the elections. Christians have got to start doing this if they ever hope to rescue Canada and Alberta from Euthanasia, Abortion, Corruption and Statist Totalitarianism. Get on the boards and put a slew of our people forward. Do this over a generation or two and the results will speak for themselves. We must out Gramsci Gramsci. This principle applies to Confederates as well as to Independents. We must continue to infiltrate every provincial CA. We must also target every school board, and every city council. It is time for a full-court press in every direction. We can overwhelm every institution in our land. We do have the numbers; we need only have a heart for the work.

4. The final thing that we must do if we want to live in a just and free society is to determine to gather for worship. The Lord listens to the prayers of His Church. He hears from heaven and answers. We need to be gathering together and praying together without ceasing, that he will move men’s hearts in this land. Men who are dead in their sins cannot be free; spiritually dead men cannot build free societies. And so we must be in earnest for the repentance of our neighbors, and for their conversions and new birth.

In conclusion, I ask all who are for Confederation, Where is your activity? Why have you been rearward in your actions? Is the Canadian Church asleep? Do something! If Confederation is worth saving, then save it! We cannot afford to be timid. Stand straight, look evil in the eye, and triumph over it in the name of Jesus!

I have concluded that Confederation cannot be saved, and that Alberta must get out. I believe that the Church has an opportunity in this moment to inflect Alberta towards being a Nation that more closely aligns with True Justice. I desire to give to my sons a nation that is just, and wherein which they may be free.

Thank you, and God bless Alberta.

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Tonight is the night! I have been looking forward to this event since we started planning it. I hope that a lot of people come out tonight. There are an awful lot of Christians in Grande Prairie. Many are civically minded. Many are not. I hope that the Lord brings out lots from both camps.

I cannot speak for other towns, but I when discussing politics with local brothers, I often get the sense that everyone is saying what they think everyone else would like to hear. Canadian Christians engage in a high degree of self-censorship. It is a thing that has always struck me as being very odd. Men who have the Truth do not need to concern themselves with what others think that they should be known for saying. Men who have the truth should speak clearly and plainly.

One of the things I hope to encourage men to aspire to is plain speech. Say what you mean. Argue for what you believe in. Act as men who believe in what they say. Be less crafty. The serpent was crafty after all. We do not need to create more imitators of him. Be sincere. Be in earnest. Say the thing.

Part of our recalcitrance is culture. This reticence to believe things out loud is a part of Canadian-ness. We will gladly mock the enthusiasms of our southern neighbors, but we will never put ourselves out there enough so that we ourselves might be mocked.

The other part of our recalcitrance is the plain fact that we do not actually believe things. One always looks over one’s internal shoulder before saying anything. We would rather die than say anything out of line with orthodoxy. We would rather die than say something and be mistaken for believing it. Who does that?

And so, tonight, I aim to say the things I mean. It is not as if I have never done that before. Anyone who has ever listened to The Chinook Podcast, or sat through one of my sermons, has heard me say exactly what I believe. But there is always the temptation to say what one thinks others ought to approve of being said. Our moment of culture-wide apostasy is no time for prevarication. We must be in earnest, lest we lose our way in the meaningless reverberations of unserious chatter.

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What is going on?

These defections are one of the main reasons why I want Alberta Independence. Albertan votes do not matter within Confederation. This is Taxation without Representation. We, like the Irish pre-1922, have a token presence in Parliament. Nothing we say, believe, or hold dear matters. We are irrelevant in our own confederation. All our affairs are being run by a foreign power. All our institutions are under assault. Bill C-9, which will be signed into law soon, is an attack on our faith. The various anti-industry laws and taxes are designed to impoverish us. Why should we go along with these provocations?

As for the floor-crossings themselves, there are a few things that need to be said. Floor-crossing is not necessarily evil. Winston Churchill did it twice, if I recall. He was the great man of his generation. We ought to take each instance of floor-crossing as what it is, and look at the situation. It is clear that PM Carney has built up an intelligence network to discover the weak members in the Conservative caucus. He has targeted soft targets. This has been a deliberate policy of his.

He has targeted weak MPs. These MP’s are social radicals. These are folks who do not want to stop the slaughter of the unborn. These are folks who are for euthanasia. These are folks who want to be within the inner circle of power. Power is the drug that they crave, and being in His Majesties Loyal Opposition cannot give them this drug. PM Carney is shrewd. Like recognizes like, and he knows what he is looking at.

The obvious question we should be asking ourselves is, “Who put weak conservatives forward for office?” MP Jovani is not being targeted for a crossing, at least so far as I can tell. Neither is Viersen, nor Warkentin. It seems to me that all the floor-crossers are soft-headed bumblers. These also are all social radicals.

Who is responsible for putting a candidate up for election? This responsibility lies in the local Constituency Association. Local party members vote on these candidates prior to elections. These riding associations are the real battleground, and few Christians know anything about this. Weak candidates come from weak CA’s. If your CA has been overrun by the godless, then your Conservative candidate will come from that pool of options.

It has long been clear to me that Christians have failed to read the political terrain of Canada. We might vote, and then discover our vote does not matter. And we moan about the futility of voting. We see that the politicians are corrupt, and we say so, but we will do nothing. The most obvious thing to do is to invade each CA in every riding. Then we put our candidates into the elections.

Because of how Confederation is structured, the only ridings that matter are in Ontario. Ontario is full of Churches. You cannot walk in any direction in Ontario without tripping over a Reformed Church. Where there is no Reformed Church, there is a Catholic or an Evangelical Church. The Baptists are also numerous there. I can only conclude that all these brothers are asleep at the wheel.

The thing that needs to be done is to invade each CA. Get on those boards. Liberal boards are also ripe for invasion. Ontario Christians have got to start doing this if they ever hope to rescue Canada from Euthanasia, Abortion, Corruption and Statist Totalitarianism. Get on the boards and put a slew of our people forward. Do this over a generation or two and the results will speak for themselves. We must out Gramsci Gramsci.

This positional principle holds true in Alberta, of course. We are doing some form of this in many places. Men favorable to Independence have been put forward by CA’s who favor the same, at the Provincial as well as the Federal level. This is one of the reasons why Independence has become a movement here.

We have been doing this regarding other issues as well. MP Viersen has been waging manful war against legal pornography in Ottawa for years. He has been able to do this because his CA supports him. It is clear to me that we must redouble our efforts.

I have encountered many Christians in Alberta who do not support separation or Independence. Very few of these brothers are actually involved in CA’s. Clearly these brothers do not want to be a part of fixing Canada. It seems to me to be odd to support a system of evil by means of silence. I ask all who are for Confederation, Where is your activity? Why have you been rearward in your actions? Do something! If Confederation is worth saving, then save it!

I have concluded that it cannot be saved, and Alberta must get out. I believe that the Church has an opportunity to make Alberta into a Nation that more closely aligns with true justice. We must redouble our efforts.

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“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

It is too often that we think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We are tempted to think that “yes indeed, I am the center of the story. Everything revolves around me. I am important. Look at me. See how marvelous my public displays of piety are.”

In truth, none of us are really all that important. In a thousand years, none of us will be on the history test. Even if we were to be on that test somehow, we still must obey this Apostolic command. We are men and women. We are old and young. We are funny and we are boring. We are beautiful, and we are ugly. We are rich, and we are poor. We are very normal. There is nothing about any of us that would excuse us from obeying this command.

There is a type of hubris, where a person elevates themselves in their own imagination above their brothers and sisters. You can usually spot this type from a mile off. They are usually the only ones who do not know that they are proud. These are full of windy, self-aggrandizing talk, but not full of good deeds. Gentleness is not in the character of the proud.

But you are not to be such. You belong to Christ, by virtue of his grace. You did not earn forgiveness. You did not earn a seat at the table of the Lord. This is all gift. And within this life, we are each of us a part of a bigger story. We are a part of the Church, Christs body. None of us is the whole body. We are mere parts. Each part of the body is required to be itself so that the rest may flourish.

Just as the hand does not get to lord it over the foot, nor the liver over the lungs, neither do you get to lord it over the brother or sister sitting across from you. They are in the same body, and serve the same Lord as you do. Irrespective of the gifts given by our Lord to others, we are called to be full of humility and good cheer. Do not think too much of yourself. Do not think of yourself too much. Turn your eyes off of yourself; turn them towards Christ, and towards the good of each other.

With this exhortation before us, let us kneel together and confess our sins, first silently and then together.

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Prayer: Our Heavenly Father, thank you for this Word which you have set before us today. We praise you for the glorious way in which you reveal the Son to us in this passage. We praise you that your only-begotten Son reveals you to us. Please fill my mouth with your word, and fill our hearts with your Holy Spirit. Help us to understand rightly, and to do faithfully. We desire that you be exalted before our eyes today so that we may love and fear you as is proper. We ask this in the mighty name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

It has been some time since we were last in the book of Hebrews, and so let us remind ourselves of where we have been. Hebrews is an extended exposition of the fact that Jesus is superior to everything. By everything, I mean to say that the author is demonstrating in decisive fashion that Jesus is superior to all the various types in the Old Testament. Everything in the Law and Prophets really is brought to its purpose, or its Telos, in Christ.

Last time we finished in verse 3 with Christ making complete purification for sins and then beginning his reign over all things. Our Lord has made us to be pure by the means of his shed blood. By means of His resurrection, the Father and the Holy Spirit have demonstrated Him to be the Justified one. Now Jesus Christ sits enthroned on Heaven’s throne. He rules over all things, seen and unseen.

Today we will be looking at the unseen world over which he rules, for today we are talking about the superiority of Christ to his angels.

Before we begin, let us set some groundwork for what follows. I do not wish you to have wrong assumptions that obscure sound thinking. We are people who live and breathe in a confused age, and this confusion extends into our own thinking regarding the spirits we call Angels.

In the scriptures, Angels are messengers in the service of God. These are beings with a spiritual substance rather than a material one, although they do appear in the Bible from time to time in visible form. We get the word “angel” from the Greek “ἄγγελοs”, which means “messenger”.

Both the Greek word “ἄγγελοs”, and the Hebrew word “mal’ak”, which is its equivalent in the Old Testament, usually refer to these beings who act as messengers. Things get a little complicated when you begin to realize that these words are also used to refer to ambassadors, priests, or prophets.

Examples of these being spiritual beings include Genesis 28:12, where Jacob saw Angels ascending and descending a ladder into heaven. Another example would include Revelation 1:1, or as in Matt. 1:20.

An example of this word type being used to refer to human messengers would include Genesis 32:3, where Jacob sends messengers to Esau when he is about to return into the land of promise.

Examples of these words being used to refer to prophets or pastors include Haggai 1:13, where Haggai himself is referred to, and Revelation 1:20, where the pastors of the seven Churches are referred to as “Angels”.

There are also theophonic angels in the scriptures. These would be instances of Jesus appearing in the scriptures prior to his incarnation and birth. Instances of this include any time that the “angel of the Lord” received worship from men, such as in Judges 13. There are also cases where the Angel is referred to in such a way as to indicate that he is the Lord, and is referred to as “angel” such as in Genesis 18 and 19.

The word used in both Greek and Hebrew to denote these beings is a word that describes a function. It is a descriptive word more than it is a proper name. This is important when considering what the author of Hebrews has to say about Angels and Jesus. We need to be careful to understand what he is referring to, so that we do not get wild-eyed ideas that bear no correspondence to the text before us.

Read vs. 3,4.

“After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

In our last sermon we began talking about Christs’ enthronement as it pertains to your purification. Jesus, by means of his death and resurrection, is both the perfect sacrifice for sin, and the perfect King. He lives forever, having defeated death in His own flesh. Death has no power over one who has been raised from the dead.

The writer of Hebrews, having begun with purification speaks much of Christs’ enthronement. What follows is a series of scriptural proofs that demonstrate Jesus superiority to the Angels. Why is this important? What is Paul saying? Why does it matter that Christ is superior to the Angels? Remember, Hebrews is all about the superiority of Jesus to every thing in the Old Covenant.

“The name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” This is to say, that a King is superior to his servants. It is always the case that a King is above his ambassadors. Any ambassador who forgets that will inevitably experience the wrath of his sovereign.

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”?

Or again,

“I will be to him a father,
and he shall be to me a son”?

These two quotes are from Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 89:26-27. 2 Sam. 7:14 is also in view here. Jesus is declared to be the eternal Son. These passages are the proofs that the writer uses to prove this point. In Psalm 2 we read,

“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.”

This is the Psalm that refers to the enthronement of the Eternal Son. Jesus is the Son of God. He owns all of the nations, and all of the earth. From the furthest corners of Asia, to the far north of Europe, to the uttermost parts of Africa, all of the Americas and every island; these are all his Empire.

To whom was this promise given? It was given to our Messiah, it was not given to the Angels to rule. Empire and dominion is given to Christ. His is not a co-regency, his is sole rule. He alone is King over all. In Psalm 89 which is quoted second we read,

“You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” And

“He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. My steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him.”

This is the part of the 89th Psalm where David blesses the Lord and recounts the promise made to him by the Lord in 2 Sam. 7. In the 89th Psalm we see that Christ shall rule “for all generations.” This is to teach us that the Empire of Christ will have no end. In Psalm 2 Jesus is given all of creation as his Empire; in Psalm 89 he is given all time as his Empire. (repeat)

There are no times over which he does not rule. Human Empire always has an expiry date. Historians argue about when the Roman Empire ended. They point out that Britain lost her Empire in the 1960’s. Or perhaps in 1946. We argue about the dates, but the fact of loss is clear.

Jesus, by way of contrast, rules over all times. He rules every bit as much over everything in 2026 as he did in 1026. He shall have the Empire in 3026 as well. Last year Papua New Guinea declared itself as part of Christs dominion. In fact, it has always been a part of his domain. These brothers finally recognized what had always been true. We long for the same recognition of Jesus as King in Alberta and Canada. Even without it, we are still within his Imperial domains.

To which of the Angels did God ever give this kind of rule? Did he give eternal dominion to these spirits? This is the question asked by the Apostle. The answer from the scriptures is clear. The rule over everything was not given to them, but to the Eternal Son.

“You are my Father” This is what Jesus said repeatedly about himself in the Gospels. Examples of this include John 14, where we read Jesus repeatedly referring to God as “my Father”. We are instructed also in the Lords Prayer to refer to God as “our Father”. Because we are in Christ, we too are Sons of God. We have the right to cry out to our loving Father for whatever we need.

This is what Paul says also in Romans 8, where we learn that we are “in Christ Jesus” (vs 1) and that we have received the adoption as Sons, by which we cry out to our Father, “Abba Father!” (vs 14-17) Do you have any need? Cry out in faith to your kind Father! The word “abba” means “Father”! The repetition of the word Father in Romans 8 should remind you of a toddler bawling for daddy. “Look at my toy!” “Bandage my wound!” “Sister hit me!” Sometimes a child just needs to sit on daddy’s lap and cry. Just as your earthly father held you and let you soak his shirt with your snot and tears, so too and much more so, does your Heavenly Father care for you.

Because Jesus is the eternal Son, and we by the Spirit are made to have union “in Christ”, we too have God as our loving Father. The Eternal Father is our Father too. We, “in Christ” share in Christ’s rule, in his mission, in the mighty conquest of every stronghold of satan, sin, and death. And we also share in his family.

Are we “in the Angels”? No. Not at all. We are united to Jesus. These angels are servants, and we are sons. Sons have rights of access that the hired help cannot have. This is all mercy. This is all grace. “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8:4)

Let us return to Hebrews 1, where we read on,

“And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

“Let all God’s angels worship him.”

Of the angels he says,

“He makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flame of fire.”

In these verses we have more direct comment on the Angels themselves. “Let all God’s angels worship him” is a quote from Deuteronomy 32:43, which is also quoted in Psalm 97:7. There we read,

“Rejoice with him, O heavens; bow down to him, all gods”

This is an interesting quote. Here I feel a slight divergence from the commentary is due. In Deuteronomy 32, we have a Psalm of Moses. In this Psalm, Moses recounts the praises of God. He also sings through an account of the idolatry of Israel. At the end of this recounting, God promises vengeance on his enemies, and he calls on the “gods” to bow down to him in reverent awe. In the Masoretic Hebrew text, the words for “gods” and “angels” are both missing entirely.

The word “πάντες ἄγγελοι θεοῦ” appear in the LXX. That translates roughly as, “all God’s angels”. This translation is maintained in the ESV as “all gods”, translating “ἄγγελοι” as “gods”. In the Hebrews passage in front of us, we read “all God’s angels”. Paul directly quotes this line from the LXX.

So why does the Masoretic omit this line, and why do many translations follow the Masoretic text, rather than the LXX, which Paul is clearly quoting from in Hebrews 1:6? I do not know why, but I have a hunch that the LXX, which is older than the Masoretic text, contains some older Hebrew readings. When you find an Old Testament quote in the New Testament that does not appear to line up perfectly with the text of the quote in the Old, you are often looking at a place where the NT author is quoting from the LXX. The LXX is the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was made about two hundred years before Christ. The Masoretic is from a couple hundred years after Christ.

At any rate, there are many excitable folks on the internet who get very passionate about this. I only offer these comments to you by way of explanation. I do not intend to exegete youtube, but the scriptures.

Let us return to the text before us. In Deuteronomy 32, all the heavenly host are summoned to worship the Lord. They worship him because of his just judgements and his revenging the blood of his children. The angels are called to worship God. We see similar ideas in Revelation 5:11, where the angels join in with the saints in worshipping Jesus.

“He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”

(Psalm 104:4) As we can see from this next quote, Paul is pointing out the subservience of the Angelic host to Christ. These are not more than he, but are less than he. He made the angels. They are his creatures, and Jesus Christ is superior to them.

Vs 8 “But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

This is a quote from the great wedding Psalm, from Psalm 45. The throne of Christ is forever and ever. He is the Righteous One who hates evil and loves Righteousness. Who could love Righteousness and hate evil more perfectly than God himself?

Look also, for in the Psalm the Son is directly referred to as “God”. Jesus is God. He is the second person of the trinity. Psalm 45 is one of the texts that proves this. We know that Psalm 45 is a proof text to the divinity of Christ because Paul quotes it here in this way. Christ is indeed “the most handsome of the sons of men”.

The 45th Psalm also refers to the anointing of Christ, as being a superior anointing to that of “his brothers”. When did Christ receive anointing? Most obviously, he received the Holy Spirits anointing after his baptism in John 1 and Luke 3. This also refers to Jesus anointing for burial, as in Matthew 26 and Mark 16.

Next we read vs 10-12

And,

“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment,
like a robe you will roll them up,
like a garment they will be changed.^a
But you are the same,
and your years will have no end.”

This quote is from Psalm 102:25-27. Jesus is again identified with the work of Gods creation. The foundations of the earth are his work. The creation of the heavens are his work. All these works are seen as temporary as compared to him. Jesus is again shown to be the Eternal Lord.

“And to which of the angels has he ever said,

“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

Next quoted is Psalm 110. This is the most-quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament. Paul asks a really good question. To which of the angels has God ever said this? The simple answer is “to none”.

The angelic host are ministering spirits sent out to serve us. How then were they serving us? In Acts 7:53 we learn that the Law was delivered to Israel by Angels. This is a comment regarding how Moses received the Law. Moses spoke with the Angel of the Lord in Exodus 3, in the burning bush. There was the giving of the Law on Sinai, to which the Deacon Stephen is likely referring to in Acts 7.

Certainly Abraham received angelic visitors, as did others of the Patriarchs. Angelic messengers appeared to Balaam, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah and his wife, as well as in the later prophetic period to various figures. The Word of the Lord is often delivered by an angelic messenger. Isaiah is an example of this, as recounted for us in Isaiah chapter six.

To bring the word of the Lord to the people of God is a very weighty thing. In several contexts, such as Malachi 3:1, which speaks of John the Baptiser as an angel, or the aforementioned passage in Revelation, men can also be referred to as “angels”. This is a job description as much as anything. The prophetic work of a minister from the pulpit is in a sense, angelic. The minister is a messenger.

And all these messengers who bring the word of God, whether they be angelic beings who come from the throne of God, or whether they be men appointed to the task, all of them are inferior to Christ. He is the message, and the one who sends the messengers. He is the one who is both God and Man. He is the one who rules over everything in the seen and unseen worlds.

What then shall we do with this most excellent knowledge? Let us turn to the beginning of chapter 2. Here we read,

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.”

The point that Paul is driving us towards is this. We must pay attention, much closer attention, to what we have heard about Christ. If the word of the angels was as glorious as it was, and it really was, then how much more glorious is the word of the Son?

The message declared by angels most certainly proved to be reliable. Think back on all of the commands of God found throughout the Old Covenant scriptures. Was the Law not perfect? Was it not the most beautiful revelation of God to his people? Were not the promises he made the most excellent promises? Were not the threats that he made awesome and terrifying?

At every point, the Lord kept his word. Not one of his promises has failed to come true. Not a single of his warnings failed to happen when his people walked away from him. Not a single word of God has fallen to the ground, discarded. Nothing of the word spoken to Israel through the mediation of the angelic host has failed. Not one.

And now, we have the words of the Word. We have the person of the Messiah himself, Immanuel, God with us. If the words of the messengers were so excellent, then the words of the King are much more excellent. And if the words of the King are much more excellent, then we have every reason to pay far more attention to these than Israel did.

Israel had many times where she fell. The nation that came out of Egypt with Moses was not the same as the nation that went into the land with Joshua. That whole generation died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. The generation that followed Joshua fell, for they did not finish the work that they started. Joshua was barely in his grave before the people ran back to idols. The generation that followed Solomon dove into the tyranny of idol worship, having split the nation in two. Which of the prophets did she not torment? Which did she not kill? To whom did they listen?

When Jesus came into the world as a baby, announced by angelic heralds, did they not try to kill him? During his ministry, was he not pursued by many murderous wolves? The people of God finally killed him, manipulating the Roman government to do so.

And now look and see. Jesus rose from the dead, and ascended on high. Which of the words of God fell to the ground unfulfilled? If the glories of fulfilled promise do not move you to love the Lord, what then is left for you? If the punishments Israel suffered do not move you to fear God, perhaps the punishments of Canada shall.

We have the words of Christ. We have the purification from sin, and the forgiveness of sin in Christ. We have the new heart and new birth that was promised! We have the kingdom of heaven! We have a type of fellowship with God that faithful Israel eagerly desired to have. They had the Lord among them in the temple. We are the new Temple. God is with us, wherever we are.

The Holy Spirit was given to specific people for specific tasks in the Older Covenant. Now he is given to us all, wherever we are. The Church really is filled with the glories of our God! Whereas before, sacrifice was continually made to render the people pure enough to stand in the presence of the Lord, we have the once-for-all purification wrought by Jesus Christ. We have Union with God in Christ, a thing that Israel wanted and did not yet have.

We have the glory that they sought. And so it becomes us, as true children of God, to pay very careful attention to all that we have been taught.

How then can we pay attention? What are the basic things that we can do to pay attention? There really are some basic things. We must learn to be brilliant in the basics.

First, attend to the daily and regular reading of the scriptures. Read your Bible, front to back. Remember that you want to get to the point where you breathe the air of the scriptures. You want to know them front to back, inside and out. How can you pay attention if you do not know what it is you should pay attention to?

Do not be ruled by your emotions when reading the scriptures. Too often we allow hyper-pietistic notions to govern our reading of the word. What I mean by this, is that we feel like we must have “deep” and “meaningful” emotional experiences whenever we read the Bible. This is a silly expectation. To be sure, this is sometimes our experience. Sometimes reading the word is like eating a rack of BBQ ribs. Sometimes. At other times, it might seem more like eating porridge.

The man who eats porridge grows every bit as much as the man who eats ribs. In fact, one cannot eat like a king every meal. When we eat porridge, we do not sit at the table and bemoan the cruel fate that has brought us so low as to eat porridge. Rather, we eat it with thanks to God for the nourishment he is giving us. We also eat the BBQ ribs with the same thanksgiving.

So too it is with reading God’s word. Sometimes it feels like porridge. Other times it feels like ribs. Either meal is good for us, and both are necessary to us. We must not be ruled by our emotions at the dinner, nor at the reading of God’s word. Eat regularly. Read some portion every day. Do not be governed by your emotions.

Second, pray without ceasing. How better to pay attention to God and his word, than by praying all the time? What part of a day may not be filled with prayer? Prayer draws us closer to Him whom we must be paying attention to. Talk to God. He tells you that he likes it. So do it.

Are you tired? Talk to God. Are you discouraged? Talk to your heavenly Father. Are you in the middle of great success? Thank him for it. Are you in the middle of persecution and trouble? Thank Him for it. Are you about to eat? Thank God for the food. Did you finish eating? Praise God for it. Are you on your way to Church? Ask God for his blessing and Spirit to attend to our worship. From the time you wake up, till the time you fall asleep, the day is full of hours and situations within which you can pray. Pray without ceasing.

The third way you can pay attention to the word is by worship. Prepare yourself and your family to come into the presence of God on the Lords Day. Fathers, this is most particularly your duty. You must prepare your family to come into the presence of our Heavenly Father. This duty also does rest on everyone individually. But it is especially a duty of fathers.

Within the worship of the Church, we have the various teachings. There is the call to worship, the homily for confession, the declaration of forgiveness, the readings, the sermon, the table, and the benediction. Each of these things contains teaching for you to pay attention to. Each of these is also in its form, a teaching to pay attention to.

The fourth way that you can pay attention to the Word, is to pay attention to Holy men who are teachers. Some of these will not be in our Church, but have written books, or published sermons or lectures or podcasts and the like. Some of these teachers will be dead saints, like an Augustine or a Calvin. Some of these teachers are living, perhaps a White or a Wilson.

Pay attention to men who live godly lives. By their fruit you shall know them. Have discernment. Have nothing to do with those who are not holy. Listen to those who have sound doctrine, and evidence of grace in their lives. Imitate that which is praiseworthy, discard that which is bad. Pay careful attention. Godly teachers are invaluable. Reprobates who twist the scriptures, or hypocrites who fail to obey them are worthless. Be sober minded.

Fifthly, the final way that you pay attention is by obeying the word. A man who reads the Bible and then refuses to do it is a worthless man. Do the obvious things. Obey God. Flee all the sins that you are commanded to flee. Embrace all the virtues that you are commanded to embrace. Repent of sins. Love God. Love his Church. Love your neighbor. There is no part of the day in which you cannot be godly.

Pay more careful attention to the Word. We have all the realities that faithful Israel longed for. There is no reason why we cannot pay attention to Christ. If we are negligent in reading the scriptures, in praying, in worship, in honouring good teachers, and in basic obedience to God, can we expect God to pour out his blessing on us?

Why should he do that? Chastisement and discipline are the things that lazy rebels should expect. Let us pursue holiness, without which no one may see God.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, AMEN

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Rev. Shane Fox took this picture. I think it is a pretty epic picture.

I have returned home from the inaugural meeting of the Canadian Presbytery in the CREC. What follows is my breathless gushing over the whole affair. What a fantastic two days!

I am immensely proud of my pastor, Rev. Zekveld. He has worked towards this very thing from the moment he received the call to be our pastor. There are times when a man has the privilege of watching work he has been a part of come to life. Well done, brother.

Rev. Cousine played the host together with his wonderful wife. The two of them, or, more biblically, the one of them, were the most marvelous hosts. Everything was organized to a high degree of efficiency. There is something really excellent about material arraignments done well. When you do not notice the hosting, then it is done well.

On to the business of the business. Our presbytery is being sponsored by Knox presbytery, and so Rev. Sumpter, the PM of Knox with Rev. Zornes were in attendance. Each in turn gave the opening exhortation from the scriptures, at the beginning of each days business.

Rev. Sumpter exhorted us on Monday from Mark 2:23-28. The main point he drove home is that the institution of Presbytery is for the Church, not the Church for the Presbytery. If the procedures are in the way of business, so much the worse for procedures. This is an exhortation that I may have stretched the application of somewhat…

On the Tuesday morning, Rev. Zornes gave us an exhortation from Col. 2:20-23. He cautioned us from that scripture to avoid the performative righteousness that is of no value as regards actual righteousness. He also spoke at length on the centrality of Christ, and our duty to draw our flocks into the orbit of The Sun/Son of Righteousness, who is Christ.

First off, we selected Rev. Gary Vanderveen as our first Presiding Minister. A large part of the reason so much business was done so efficiently was due to his whipping the caucus, so to speak. He kept us moving at an orderly, yet brisk pace.

Our next order of business was the naming of ourselves. We have named ourselves Boniface Presbytery, following CREC naming conventions. Boniface was the Irish saint who gave his life to evangelize the Dutch. The Dutch repaid him with the martyrs crown, and fourteen hundred years of unbroken faithfulness to Christ.

After this, we received greetings from the fraternal delegates. Because we are Presbyterian and Catholic, we have these things. Our brothers from Sola Union Presbytery, from Red Deer and Penticton gave us their warm greetings in the name of our Lord. Rev. Fox from Penticton addressed us warmly and well. Those Sola Union brothers are fine fellows. If you are in Red Deer or Penticton, check them out.

We next had a letter read from ARPA. We had published a letter in support of them when the BC government censured them last year. This action on their behalf was warmly received at the time, and they expressed their deep gratitude in this letter. ARPA is worth supporting, by the way. Any time a brother, or group of brothers, is taking it to the common enemy, they deserve support. Satan, and all his works and effects, deserve a good kicking. ARPA has been kicking thusly for many years.

The actual business is not mine to report here, but it included two ordination exams, and a good deal of robust discussion. One of the exams was bi-lingual. Our brothers from St John Baptiste in Drummonville did really well.1 I cannot imagine trying to conduct a business meeting in two languages, and yet it came off without any real difficulty. The Lord is kind. Various pastoral advice was asked for and given. I always enjoy the Church reports. You get to see how to pray for your brothers in those reports.

We received presentations from several works in progress. Rev. Zekveld the senior presented the JCDP2 and Canadian Theopolitans to presbytery. Both of these works are aimed at building the Church, but in different ways. The JCDP aims at the target of helping Churches come in to and thrive in Boniface. Canadian Theopolitans aims at the target of helping ministers and elders learn from the scriptures so that they can ably teach and lead in their Churches. It is not a work aimed specifically at the CREC world, but it is in our world. They have a conference coming up in October, in Langley, BC.

Jamie Soles presented his body of work to presbytery. He has taken the Psalm lyrics from the Book of Praise, and re-done all the music. This is a work that allows a congregation who has a guitar player to have access to the Psalms. The poetry of the BofP is of a very high order, and Jamie’s musical arrangements add the virtue of musicality to this beauty, and the result is an elevation into the sublime. I am a partisan of Psalm 94, which he sung for us. This Psalm was one that he taught to our congregation during Covid. I have trouble singing it. My eyes leak. Strive, Lord with those who strive with me.

Chris Rice, the owner of Aslans Den, also addressed us. He and his wife sell books. Good books. Big books. Presbyterian books. I picked up a copy of Joe Boots 10 year anniversary edition of The Mission of God. I could not help myself. If you put a book table in front of me, and I have my credit card within arms reach, I shall buy books. I am an addict. I will not change. Joe Boot is this generations Rushdooney. There, I said it.

Throughout the meetings of the two days, there were many prayers and Psalms offered up. We like to sing. We like to pray. We believe God likes it when we sing and pray.

I hope that we will be fully incorporated within the CREC at the fall Council meeting. There are good reasons to hope for this.

The fellowship meals were the best part of a great thing. We ate good food, had good drink, smoked good smoke, and sang so loud that we drowned out the music in the bar downstairs. We also discovered that the lady that was serving us our food and drink is a believer as well.

I feel tired, and yet refreshed. This is how Jonathan must have felt when he ate the honey. Tired, and yet pursuing. Fortunately, we have no Saul to stomp on our fire. Rather, we serve the Davidic King who pours water on fire, and makes it burn hotter yet.3

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“Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the Heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants” Psalm 119:89-91

O Heavenly Father, we praise You today. You are faithful to all generations. We thank You for your many ways in which You were faithful to our fathers. Your kindness and mercy go all the way back to the very beginning. We praise You for you faithfulness towards us.

How is it that the Holy God forgives sin? And yet this is what You have done and are doing. Every day You show your mercy and kindness towards us all. We praise and thank You for all of your Mighty Acts on our behalf.

Your faithfulness is also for our Children, and for all our descendants. For this also we praise You. Who has a God like You, but we? All of the other gods are false, vain, and demonic things. But You are our Creator, Father, and Friend.

You say in Your word that “all things are your servants.” We confess that we do not understand all the details of Your providential care, but we watch Your actions in faith.

We see that You are overthrowing a very great persecutor of Your Church, in the nation of Iran. We ask that you would protect Your Church in Iran during this war. Overthrow and confuse all her oppressors. Please pour out Your Holy Spirit on Iran, overthrow Islam, and make her into a Christian Nation. Magnify Your own Glory in Iran we pray.

We also ask that You would magnify Your Glory in Canada. Please send Your Spirit into the Canadian Church. Heal us of our faithlessness. Make us to be people who delight in You, in Your word, and in obedience to You. Please protect Your Canadian Church from those who would seek to harm her.

Please grow us in number. Please increase our love for You and for our neighbors. There are many around us who do not love Christ. We are surrounded by many who have distracted themselves away from the eternal things. We ask that You would wake up the sleeping. We ask that You would give life to the dead. Please give us Grande Prairie. Please give us Alberta. Please give us Canada.

Our nation is a bloodthirsty nation. You see all the bloodshed. You also see how we cover ourselves with lies with which we vainly hope to fool You. We beg of you that You come to the defense of the unborn, the sick, and the aged. Stop all abortion and euthanasia in our land, for we ask it in Jesus name.

We praise You for the many Churches in our area who gather to worship You today. We ask that You would bless St. Josephs’ today. Please turn their hearts towards Your word and their hands towards Your service. We thank You for these saints today.

We praise You for all the babies You have given to us. Please be with all our pregnant mothers. Give health to babies and mothers both. Thank You for all our children. We ask that You would preserve each of these in the faith of Jesus Christ. Please give each one of them the endurance to run the Christian race all the way. We desire that they all love You with all of their heart, soul, strength, and might. And we know that You are mighty to do this.

We thank you for those among us who suffer various illnesses and injuries. We thank you for suffering, which is used by You to produce all good spiritual fruit in us. We ask for those who suffer, that You heal them. And for these also we ask that You work in them all the good You intend by these afflictions. You are good, and all Your works are good.

We thank You for our congregation. Thank You for all the fellowship, for all the growing together. We praise You for how You are using each of us to encourage, to sharpen, to warn, and to love each other. Please work ever deeper into each of us the hearty love of each other.

Please bless Pastor Nathan today. We ask that You would have our full attention, so that we hear Your word and then do it. We offer up to You our hearty Psalms, Prayers, and Thanksgivings, knowing that You are worthy of all this and much more. We offer up these prayers in faith, knowing that You love us. In the name of Jesus Christ our LORD, who taught us to pray saying together,

Our Father…

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What ought a Christian think about a government that strays from Romans 13?

It is clear that Christ claims supremacy over the governments of this world when he says that such are ministers of his wrath. It is also clear that the Christian owes obedience and taxes to such as preform their duties as such. What is not clear to me is that we owe much of anything to governments that disobey the duties of the office to which they have been called.

Does anyone require a wife to remain in the house with a husband who beats her? No. He does not falsify true husbandship by his beating of his wife, but he does place himself in the path of divorce. If an Elder in the Church preaches false doctrine, does he jeopardize the Church as the Kingdom of God? No, he puts himself into the path of his own excommunication. He has been a bad Elder. The office is not nullified by his sin.

If a state pursues evil and punished righteousness, is all government forever in danger? No, but he may be removed from it. Governors are not eternal. Political associations are not eternal. These may be changed as need be.

Those of us who desire Albertan Independence do not desire the anarchy of no government. We desire a government who does righteously. We desire a government that - like the leper - is healed, clothed, and seated at the feet of Christ. He has regained his right mind. We do not want an abolition of government; we desire good government.

If the government of Canada were to repent of abortion, MAID, and usurious taxation, then we would be well on our way to having what Paul describes in Romans 13. The Canadian government has made clear that they will not do any such thing. Most of the rest of Canada wants an evil government. They, knowing we alone do not have the power to stop them, have doubled down on all the foolish wickedness. Canadians in the rest of the country clearly want all the transvestitism, plunder-taxes, baby-killing and euthanasia. If they wanted something else, they would have made sure that we got it.

And so it is left to us to get what we want, and by our own efforts. Independence is a write of divorce. We want nothing to do with all the bloodthirstiness. We want Christendom.1

The government of a people possess legitimacy when it has the willing obedience of its people, and when it preforms its duties towards the same. The authority for action comes from God, as mediated through Christ and His word. The legitimating of a specific government comes from its people. Legitimacy is expressed in several ways. Kings would sometimes receive acclamation. In many cases, this was done via the instrument of a parliament. Sometimes this acclamation is done by some assembly of the nobility. Sometimes the quiet acquiescence of a people is enough.

In every case, it is the body of the people who accept a ruler, or who reject a ruler. Human society predates governments. Adam and Eve lived long before the first King or Parliament. Governments were created for the good of and the justice and defense of the society. When a government fails to do this, a people may take into their own hands the means of correcting these wrongs.

A people may change the form of government under which they live. A people may change the person of the governor, and replace him with those who would do better. The fact that we have a parliament in Canada and one in Alberta are reflective of this fact. Our forefathers knew this.

We do not believe in the Divine Right of Parliament. Our forefathers did not believe in the Divine Right of Kings, either. Albertan Independence is the same old fight. It is the Magna Carta, it is the English Civil War, it is the Glorious Revolution, it is the American War for Independence. We want the same things that our fathers wanted. We want liberty.

The Canadian government does not have the right to divine honours. What does the Lord think about unjust rule?

A nation that kills the unborn does not have a government. It has industrial scale murder. We used to call that genocide. A nation that authorizes the euthanizing of its vulnerable does not have the right to insist on living. A nation that plunders half the paycheck of its citizens does not have the right to wealth and luxury. A nation that steals wealth from one part to subsidize laziness in another part is asking for a revolt. Not even the Mongols demanded these levels of plunder from their subjects.

What is it that we oppose? We are not opposing legitimate rule. We want that. We oppose false-so-called rule. We oppose the demonic counterfeit of government. Canada is a nation that makes a pretense at law. We do not have the matter of the fact within us.

Why does our Prime Ministers name appear in the Epstein files? Is he a pedophile? Who is giving him cover? Why do we seem to have so few good men in government? Are we really a nation of pedophiles? Are we really a nation of blood-sucking vampires? Are we nothing more than thieves? We have a pretense of law. We do not have the fact of law.

Albertan Independence is, and ought to be, a rejection of all of this evil. Albertan Independence is the embrace of Law, of Good Government, of the supremacy of Christ over all things. Papua New Guinea can do it, why can we not?

If Ottawa refuses to be righteous, then it is up to us to take back the rule from them, and to give it to better men. This is what Alberta Independence is, and ought be.

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So spake one Mr. Chesterton in 1910. The gauntlet having been thrown down for these past one-hundred and six-teen years, I thought it prudent to have someone else rise to the challenge. Delegation is the essence of leadership. Thus I challenged my two boys, one aged ten and the other eight, to write me a poem on cheese. The challenge answered, and these are the results.

The first is by Walt, aged 8. I have attempted to maintain his spelling, as it seems to me to be part of the essence of his poetic gift.

Cheese is mease, mease is Cheese cese wies mease leis
Cheese it tops your guts ontu the flor weis it out
Cheese is gud and so are you cheese weis mease
Cheese skupes you gut gut intu a boll cheesse is good
Cheese is the best and so are you.

The second, by Liam, aged 10, is less Saxon, and suffers from a greater degree of intelligiblity.

Parmashon is a good and yumy cheese.
Chedder cheese is a good and yumy cheese.
Smoked chedder cheese ais a yumy cheese.
Guda is not a very good plane cheese.
Smoked guda is a pretty good cheese.

Liam’s biases towards the various types of cheese is clear. He does not like Gouda, Poor fellow. Liam also offered up another poem, on a topic closer to his own heart than cheese. it is entitled “Hunting Poem” and is as follows,

To hunt is to be as swift as an elk,
Silent as a lion when hunting,
Strong as a gorilla,
And that is how you hunt.

I quite like this offering.

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The preacher might be tempted to a good bit of cynicism when it comes to these things. Is anyone listening? Am I speaking into the void? In part, this volume is a response to this very thing. The charge of speaking into the void must be answered. It is no small matter that a man stands up in the Assembly of the Saints of God, and that he speaks to them on behalf of God.

Not only are men listening, but they are being changed by the Word to whom they listen. The preaching of a sermon is an unveiling of the text of Scripture. In conceptual terms, the Preacher’s job in the sermon is very simple. First, he must open the text. Second, he must read the text. Third, and finally, he must explain the text. When the Preacher has run out of things to say in explanation of the text, he may safely move on to the next portion of the text.

The concept of the sermon is no mystery. The true mystery of the sermon lies in the effect that the Holy Spirit makes with it in the hearts and minds of the hearers. It is beyond doubt that the Holy Spirit changes men and women by the hearing of these words. Indeed we read in the prophet Isaiah,

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

and do not return there but water the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

It is the Lord who determines the effect to which a sermon shall work in the congregation. The usefulness of the sermon is determined by the foreknowledge of the Father, and the artistry of the Holy Spirit. If a preacher desires to see men changed by his preaching, he is best served by attending himself to prayer. Study is an invaluable discipline, but apart from prayer it seems to me that no sermon is truly complete.

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My carefully attentive reader might find themselves brought short by that opening paragraph. Waitaminute… what’s wrong with this guy? Isn’t he for Independence? Why, yes, I am. And thank you for asking. I am for Independence for good and solid reasons. I also am cheering for team Canada to win hockey gold. The contradictions pileth thickly, and yea. To paraphrase an old love ballad, I love the hockey team for sentimental reasons.

It is no crime to indulge a little harmless sentimentality, once in a while. I also really enjoy good hockey. Good fun is good fun. But then there is the issue of Nationalistic jingoism. This is a real thing here in Canada, and I think this is a good time to address it.

One of my constant critiques of Canada has been that this nation has no identity other than that we must be the reverse negative of America. Anything that America represents, we feel duty bound to oppose. America is for freedom, therefore we must be for repression.

Take as an example of that Abbotsford fellow who used to be a school trustee, Mr. Neufeld. He has been fined by an illegal tribunal 750,000$ for refusing to call a transgendered person by their “surgical” name. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in the States, and so it must happen here. Americans have the 2nd Amendment, therefore we must have gun control and the suppression of armed citizenry; the plunder of our property by force. It is clear that Canadian gun control has always been driven by Anti-American jingoism, not by any necessary policy.

This very phenomenon plays out in the field of athletics. The modern Olympic games have always been designed to be an expression of nationalistic jingoism. Do not pay too much attention to all the blather about the purity of athletic competition. It has always been about getting one over on your national rivals. This is diplomacy, this is war without casualties. And in every case, it is about telling the story of national greatness to ones own people.

I enjoy great hockey, and a gold medal game with America would be just that. Just keep your eye on the puck, so to speak. The game is a proxy for conflict in other arenas, and it is no coincidence that I just used a sports metaphor to say it. The Four-Nations cup was just this thing, and the Olympic gold medal game will be the second chapter in this story, provided the Americans get there.

What should Christians think about Nationalistic jingoism? Right off the top, let me say that we should feel no compulsion to join in it. I know I risk stretching the sports metaphor to the breaking point, but we are on Team Jesus. This means that our basic allegiance is to the Church. Our basic and fundamental allegiance to Christ does not always force us to foreswear patriotism. Patriotism is a lower order of allegiance; it is not nothing. It has its place, as a servant to the Church and her Lord.

When national patriotism sets itself up against loyalty to Christ and the Church, then the issue is clear. When it does not, then the conscience and wisdom must be our guides. Cheering for a national hockey team is not necessarily a sin. Nor is it necessarily a virtue. Virtue is always to be understood in relation to Christ, for he is the one who is truly virtuous.

And so I feel quite free to cheer for a hockey team that represents a national identity I wish to leave behind. I also hope that the Americans win their game today. I really want a chance to see great hockey. I for one, do not hate America. It represents much that is grand in this world. They also have their sins. I am a Calvinist. All have fallen short of the Glory of God.

So relax, my fellow Albertan patriots. Enjoy the games, or don’t. We might one day have our own team. My prayer is that when we do, it is a team that represents Christ to the world, and not some mere earthly nationalistic jingoism. We clearly do not need more of that.

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