Genesis 3:16
Unto the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

Part of the curse of Eve is the temptation to believe that the curse of Adam is superior.

"Eve's curse isn't good enough, they (feminists) want to share Adam's too." — Voddie Baucham

Feminism, not content with its own curse, clamors for the curse of Adam. It wrongly asserts that his privileges are greater than his responsibilities and falsely assumes that the woman's responsibilities are not privileges.

Feminism blesses the curses of Adam and curses the blessings of Eve.

“It might be said symbolically that Americans have a taste for rocking-horses, as they certainly have a taste for rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter.” — G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America 

Americans are restless. 

Rocking chairs allow one to rest without resting completely and that is, in microcosm, the essence of the American spirit. We strive, we reach, we push... or at least, we used to. 

We did not find rest in Jesus, however. That is not why we have stopped striving. We have not found contentment. No, we grew discontent with our discontent and so we found a new way to be discontent... laziness.

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." — Augustine

Doing nothing is not resting. A rocking chair can genuinely relaxing. It maximizes the relationship between exertion and relaxation. A minimal twitch of the leg can set the entire body back and forth. In that way, a rocking chair is perhaps a good picture of resting in Christ while doing that which He prepared beforehand for us. 

We must do something and we must rest. In Christ, we can do both. Without Him, we either work ourselves to death or we die to our work. We get anxious or we get lazy, but we do not rest.

“It looked not so much as if Christianity was bad enough to include any vices, but rather as if any stick was good enough to beat Christianity with.” — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Christianity is accused of being too fussy because it condemns drunkenness, but it is also accused of being too fast and loose because it requires wine in communion. 

Christianity is accused of being too bloodthirsty because it requires the execution of convicted murderers, rapists, and kidnappers, but it is also accused of being too merciful because it forbids the execution of innocent unborn children, the elderly, and the handicapped.

Christianity is accused of being too prudish because it forbids fornication and adultery, but it is also accused of being too profane because it requires regular relations between a husband and wife.

Christianity is accused of being too vulgar and base because it talks openly about sex, but it is also accused of being too prim and proper because it condemns open displays of overt sexuality.

Christianity is accused of being too materialistic because it insists on tangible obedience, but it is also accused of being too spiritual because it looks to a city not built by human hands.

Christianity is accused of being too old fashioned because it has been around a long time, but it is also accused of being too novel because it has only been around since the death of Christ.

Christianity is accused of being too divisive and is blamed for all of the blood of human history, but it is also accused of being too compromising and is blamed for being too wimpy to matter.

Christianity is accused of being too boring and it is accused of being too excitable.

Christianity is accused of being too much work and it is accused of offering too much grace.

Christianity is accused of being too hot and it is accused of being too cold.

Christianity is accused of being too much and it is accused of being not enough.

Christianity is accused of being too Christlike and it is accused of not being Christlike enough.

All that to say, there are any number of ways to accuse Christianity of falling short, but there is only one way to measure how short something falls, and that is Christ. He is only the standard against which Christianity can be compared. So, even in accusing Christianity, the heathen must borrow Christian tools. 

It is Christ or chaos.

"Limited government is a specifically Christian political concept, and the secularists aren’t Christians." — Douglas Wilson, Darryl Hart, the Wall Street Journal, and the First Person Singular Pronoun in the Objective Case

The Definition of Chalcedon declared that Jesus was fully man and fully God without confusion. This confirmed that man did not become a God, but that God became a man. As such, men are limited. They are not gods in process. This is the foundation for the doctrine of limited government in every sphere. God has designed four spheres of government: self, family, church, and state. They all have genuine authoritative spheres. 

The will belongs to the self. You can say "No" to yourself and only you can say "No" to your will. Someone else can force you to do their will, but they cannot force you to surrender your will. They can make you do the thing, but they cannot make your heart into it. They can demand that you do it and that you mean it, but they can only make you do it, they cannot make you mean it. 

Education, health, and welfare belong to the family. Fathers are commanded to provide their children with a Christian education. They have options on how to provide it, but it must be provided. A distinctly Christian culture must be passed along to one's children. In addition, medicinal decisions are within the jurisdiction of the family. What to serve for dinner and what to take (or not take) when you have a headache are the decision of the family. There are some limitations on this, for sure, but only inasmuch as they encroach on the jurisdictions of others. So, you cannot serve your neighbor for dinner as God has forbidden you to murder them or to eat them if you should find them already deceased. 

Word and sacrament belong to the church. They are the Lord's Word and Table, but He has deputized the church to administer them. The Word does not belong to the church per se and the bread and wine are not the private possession of the church, but they are uniquely qualified to distribute them and declare, "Thus saith the Lord."

The sword belongs to the state. It possesses the ability and responsibility to execute vengeance as the deacon of God's wrath. Those who are convicted of a crimes deserving death are executed by the state. The state does not get to define what deserves death, but they are responsible to carry out the executions of those God has declared deserve to die.

All this to say, no earthly authority is absolute. Said another way, all earthly authority is limited. Or most succinctly -- only God is unlimited. As such, limited government is a Christian concept. Secularism will not produce a limited government, it will produce a state that imagines itself to be a god. The are no secular utopias because secularism cannot produce peace. Might makes right cannot make peace, but it can break things into pieces... and it often does.

"I don’t want my faith to be deeply American. I want America to be deeply Christian." — Douglas Wilson, Darryl Hart, the Wall Street Journal, and the First Person Singular Pronoun in the Objective Case

Ordered affections require adjectives. It is a question of what is substantive and what is descriptive. Are you an American who has faith or are you a Christian who in America? Do you want American flavored Christianity or do you want Christian flavored America. Jesus commands us to disciple the nations. In order for them to remain nations, they will retain some sense of nationality. That means you will have French flavored Christians and Chinese flavored Christians, but the Christianity will be the constant. The nationalities bend and bow to Christ and die to themselves. Each has a treasure to offer their King, but all have the same King. Christianity does not bow to cultures, cultures conform to Christ. He is the constant, the arche, the One to Whom all things are being drawn, and to Whom all things will submit.

I love America and I love Christ and because I love Christ, I love Him before and more than America. I would rather see something American die in order to be more like Christ than to see anything Christian compromised in order to exist in America.

"A corpse is not partly resurrected, and dead faith is not most of the way there.” — Douglas Wilson, Concise and to the Point

Being resurrected is like being pregnant: you either are or you aren't, but there is no such thing as kind of resurrected just like there is no such thing as kind of pregnant. Dead faith is not faith and dead works do not work. 

We are not drowning and in need of a lifeguard, we are dead at the bottom of the pool and in need of a miracle. Resurrection does not do fractions. Faith is not incremental. You can have more faith than someone else, but you cannot have less.  That is to say, everyone who has faith has a completed faith even though some of more of it and no one has an incomplete faith. Dead faith is just another way of saying, "no faith."

“There is also a deep theological problem with the view that death antedated mankind. The Bible teaches that Adam produced death. The opposing view has to say that in some manner death produced Adam.” — Douglas Wilson, Concise and to the Point

Darwinian evolution assumes that death is not an enemy, but a friend, who helped God produce people, but that also presupposes that death came before the Fall. We are told that the Fall of Adam led to the introduction of death for all men and the world around him. Even the ground and that which grew out of it was changed as a result of Adam's sin. 

As Pastor Wilson points out, either Adam's sin lead to death as the Bible says or many deaths led up to Adam as Darwinian evolution says. 

Death is either an enemy to be defeated or it is a savior to be praised. 

Death either delivers man into the presence of God or it delivers man out of nonexistence. It either takes him out of this world or it brought him into it. 

That is the chasm between the Biblical creation account of the world and what followed versus the atheistic, Darwinian account of existence and what follows.

1 Corinthians 10:21
Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.

You must choose which cup to partake in, but you cannot choose not to partake. Partaking is inescapable. It is woven into the warp and woof of the world. Covenantal realities are not optional. You are either in covenant with God or you are in covenant with devils. There is no neutrality. You are either in the old Adam or you are in the new One. You are either grieving the Spirit or you are glorifying God. You have a choice, but you do not have the choice to not choose. You have to choose and you are choosing. 

So, choose wisely. Where do you want to eat? Who do you want to sit by? Whose table do you want to be at? What do you want to eat and drink? The rule of Heaven is that God determines the menu and He has provided His Son as the meal. The rule of Hell is the illusion of choosing what you want to eat only to discover that it is was you who was on the menu. 

The Spirit of Christ says, "This is My Body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of Me, and this cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you."

The spirit of antichrist says, "Bite and devour one another before you are consumed by another."

"We must begin by establishing our priorities...Sen. Eugene McCarthy, once said that being a senator was a lot like being a football coach—you had to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it was important." — Douglas Wilson, Athletics and Christian Community #1

Politics are like playing a game, you have to have the wherewithal to know how to play and to remember that's just a game. Politics is not altogether unimportant, but it is less important than the people playing the game think it is. Christ is King which makes everything political, but politics cannot save, only Jesus can... and politics itself needs to be saved.

“I doubt whether the best men ever would devote themselves to politics. The best men would devote themselves to pigs and babies and things like that.” — G.K. Chesterton

Politics is not just a game, because it has to be played. You don't have to play football and no one else necessarily does either, but if you don't play politics, someone else will and that just means your concerns won't be represented. The stakes are high and someone has to play, but only someone of low caliber would devote their everything to it. It's a job you take of of necessity in order to accomplish something else, not an end in itself.

"No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems -- of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind." — Thomas Sowell

Only a scoundrel would see politics as an end in itself. It is necessary to legislate, but it is also necessary to realize that life is more than legislation. In fact, legislation should largely stay out of our lives. Legislation is for those who wants to infringe on the ability of others to live, be free, and pursue property and happiness. 

“Our culture has become as gay as pre-ripped jeans." — Toby Sumpter

We like the look of productivity without the work. Pre-ripped jeans require someone else to do more work so that you can look like you did more work than you did. 

"We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." — C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

We make fun of productive people and then wonder why the cost of production has gone up. We refuse to shoulder our share of the burden and then we wonder why everything has gotten so heavy. We want the rewards of responsibility without the sacrifices of being responsible. We are fake and gay. We have become fruitless trees and castrated geldings and then we have the audacity to mock husbandry.

"This is modernity's barbarism - hollow hearts led about by sterile matter, perversely mocking those with full lives." — Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture

The childless cat ladies mock the mothers of six. They abort their own children and call themselves cat moms. But wisdom is justified by her children. You can leave your life's work to your cat, if it happens to outlive you, but your cat cannot do the same. You can throw your pearls before pigs you like, but you can't make a pig appreciate them.

Philippians 1:28 (Moffatt)
Your fearlessness is a clear omen of ruin for them.

The fear of God makes it possible to be fearless. If you bow before Christ, you can stand before any man, any plan, any plot, etc... The fact that they are plotting and you are not is a sign of their impending doom and your eternal security. The propaganda is proof that the power of the Gospel is indomitable. They would not have to be trying so hard if they weren't worried. Hurry up offenses and hail mary's are not run by people who feel like they are in control. They are plays run by people who are in a panic and feel like their window of opportunity is running out.

Their irritation is a clear omen of their pending devastation.

Hebrews 12:27
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 

God is about to shake things up. And when the boat begins to rock, the unstable will come crashing down. The established will be proven by their ability to endure. God has laid a foundation that cannot be quaked and anything built on it will stand the test of time and the shake of the quake that is coming.

“I believe that, as Christian emissaries come to each of these nations to be discipled, the foundational cornerstone proclaimed by them is that Jesus is Lord. The first corollary to this is that Caesar isn’t lord, and so the first gift the Church brings, and the first point of repentance for the established authorities of each nation, is the liberating doctrine of limited government.” — Douglas Wilson, Concise and to the Point

Christ is the King of kings, so Caesar needs must get off his high horse. He has authority because Christ has invested it in him, but he has limited authority because it comes from somewhere else. Christ has authority in Himself. He deputizes lesser magistrates to particular jurisdictions: husbands to marriages, fathers to homes, governors to regions, and elders to churches. There is real authority in the head of the home because the Head of heads says so. There is real authority in the head of state because the Head of all states put it there. There is real authority in the head pastor because the Chief Shepherd stands behind him.

No earthly authority is absolute which is to say that all earthly authority is limited authority. It is real, but it is really limited. All masters answer to the Master and all rulers are measured by the Ruler of rulers. He is the measuring stick because He is the standard. And so, because God is good, we are able to tell when a governor isn't or when a husband isn't or when a pastor isn't. God is good, all of the time; all of the time, God is good. And so we set every lesser authority up against its Author to determine whether it is acting lawfully or rebelling against its jurisdiction. When a lesser authority goes to far, it is out of step and in sin. When a lesser authority does not go as far as it is required, it is not keeping up with what God has for it. In either case, it is in sin by falling short of its lesser glory or by attempting to take glory that does not belong to it.

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Walt Kelly’s comic strip Pogo

If we are going to triumph over our enemies out there, we must first triumph over our enemies within. Traitors and haters in the camp must be addressed before we can successfully repel our invaders. The sin within did not invade us, it is native. It is more legit than an anchor baby. It was born of the blood and soil of its host. Your sins are truly yours. They have your last name and they share your DNA. If you do not deal with those, you will not be able to righteously deal with those who have invaded your world. 

“A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad.” — C.S. Lewis, The Problem if Pain

If you assume that other men from other places or from other races are bad, but fail to see that natives are as well, you will never build anything that can survive. You cannot win a war against reality. If you do not accept your own depravity, you will not be able to defend yourself against another's hostility.

"One last point. Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not when you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If we are blind to how bad we are it is a sign of how truly bad things are for us. But when we begin to acknowledge and accept and take responsibility for the wickedness within, we will know that we are on the right path toward dealing with the wickedness that is coming at us from without.

2 Timothy 2:22-23
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.

Consider putting more effort into cultivating godly friendships with other young men and guys. Help where you can and ask for help where you need it. Side by side is the best way to bond with other men. A good crew can help with the loneliness. That said, choose your crew wisely. A bunch of young bucks trying to bond over the latest twitter outrage isn't the best basis for a productive friendship.

In other words, avoid porn and rage porn by spending more time around guys who aren't involved with either of them.

“I believe that this righteousness of faith is what the sons of Abraham were promised they would be able to use to overpower the world and all of its customs, manners, and ways.” — Douglas Wilson, Concise and to the Point

The Word of God overcame the void. The fullness of God conquered the emptiness. The wisdom of God outmaneuvered the knowledge of evil. The light of God blinded the darkness.  

1 John 5:4
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

The sons of Abraham will cover the world as the sand covers the beach and light up the world the way the stars punctuate the sky. The world as we know it is passing away, the world as God wants it is coming to pass.

"Frivolity is trying to rejoice with nothing to rejoice over." — G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly (1925)

Frivolity is artificial. It wants the rewards of intimacy without the intimacy and the benefits of responsibility without any of the responsibility. It knows enough to know that it should want to have fun, but refuses to turn to the Font of fun to have it. It wants to party without an occasion and a ceremony without a Guest of honor.

"The result is that at last even frivolity begins to fail. People who began by coming together only for fun end by doing it only for fashion; and there is no more even of faint suggestion of fun but only of fuss." — G.K. Chesterton, G.K.'s Weekly (1925)

Chasing a high is always exhausting. All of the superstition and reenactments cannot contain the thrill of the original. There is a reason for the original that the reenactment cannot capture. Eventually, you are left with fussing over the details of getting it just right only to be disappointed all over again.

"Wit is a fighting thing and a working thing. A man may enjoy humor all by himself; he may see a joke when no one else sees it; he may see the point and avoid it. But wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it." — G.K. Chesterton

It is one thing to know how to make someone see and understand the point of something and quite another to make them feel the point of it.

Acts 5:29-35
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, "We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.  And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him." When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.

You can speak in a pointed way, but you cannot poke someone's soul. The Word of God can cut to the division of joint and marrow, soul and spirit, however.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

It is the grace of God that gives us the ability to see the point and it is the grace of God that gives us the ability to feel its poke in our souls.

"All good things come to a point, swords for instance" — G.K. Chesterton

All good and perfect gifts come down to us from above, including the words that cut us to the quick. Thank God for His surgical precision in doing reconstructive heart surgery on us after having already performed a heart transplant on us. 

“One of the most necessary and most neglected points, about the story called history, is the fact that the story is not finished.” — G.K. Chesterton

History is not yet in the books. Some of it is, but not all of it. The Author knows the ending, but He has not written it down yet. It is in His mind. He knows where all of this is going, but He has not yet put all of the details down on paper. Not because He doesn't know them, but because He is still writing down the details of today right before our eyes. We often know the end of a sentence before we begin to type it out. We sometimes know the end of the essay before we begin writing it. But God knew the end of history before the beginning. He knows where the period will be even as He is typing the present into existence.

"While Christians and Jews share the Old Testament, we come down here to a foundational principle of division. Jesus either rose from the dead or He did not. The Old Testament either prophesied that He would, or it didn’t. If He did not rise, then as the apostle Paul noted, we Christians are the most pitiable creatures ever (1 Cor. 15:19). If He did rise from the dead, then He is the promised Messiah that the entire Old Testament was pointing toward. That would make the Jews the most to be pitied." — Douglas Wilson, By the Rivers of an Everlasting Babylon

Judeo-Christian is an oxymoron. They cannot coexist. Both cannot be true Israel. 

Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

There is only one God.

Deuteronomy 6:5 
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

You cannot have another god because there could not be anything left for him. If you love the one, true God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you would have no heart, soul, mind, or strength to give to another and no god would suffer such indignity. 

"And whether Jesus rose from the dead is one of those binary things. He either did or He didn’t. There is no halfway. If He didn’t, then what honest man would want to be one of those deluded Christians? If He did rise, then every sensible person would want everyone else to know and acknowledge it. But the one thing we cannot do with whether He remained in the grave or came out of it is . . . split the difference. Splitting the difference is not a rational option. There is no difference that can be split." — Douglas Wilson, By the Rivers of an Everlasting Babylon

If Jesus is God, worship Him, if not, then don't. If Judaism was the packaging that the Messiah came in, so be it, but no one treats the packaging like they do the product it contained. You might keep a package to read some instructions about the product, but you don't keep the zip ties that held the product in place or the mold in which the product rested in order to be displayed. Some want to make the whole thing a collectible by keeping the product in its original packaging by insisting that no one open it. They put it on a shelf and stare at it. They may offer it some form of worship and adoration and even show it off to their friends or others who appreciate such things, but they do not appreciate the product for what it is. They do not respect its Maker by making His work into an idol kept behind a clear sheet of plastic. 

1 Kings 18:21
And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." And the people answered him not a word.

Do not split the difference. If Christ is risen, do not worship the cave He walked out of. You can and should revisit it in contemplating His achievement in overcoming it, but you cannot and must not worship a buried-Christ, you must bow before the risen Christ. Judeo-Christian is wanting to have the cave and beat it too. Either Jesus has grown out of Judaism or Judaism put down Jesus. Either He overcame the grave or the Jews sent Him forever to one.

Jesus is either still in His grave clothes somewhere or He is sitting at the right hand of God the Father and from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

"The modern world will have to fit in with Christmas of die." — G.K. Chesterton,  The Illustrated London News (1909)

Christmas will conquer the world. The world will either have to get on board by dying to itself or it will be killed by the coming on of Christ. The earth will be as it is in Heaven. That will come either by being raised from the dead by repentance or by being razed to the ground by the wrath of the Lamb.