It's In the Heart

Debate and Not                                                     

Dialogue One

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"It's In the Heart"

Characters: Mr. Ishbak Knot and Mr. Match Mooting

Boom! Cracking. Rumbling.
"Thunder. That sound is a miracle," said Match.
"It's just a shock wave," disputed Ishbak.
"Which is it? I say both. It is a shock wave. Still. It is a miracle. Only God can create thunder. Any approximation and that is what it would be..."
"Don't give me that pigswill." Ishbak rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"How do you feel about your opinion?"
"What's this about feelings? Now I know you're soft in the head."
"Oh. You do not have an answer?" Match asked and popped a grin.
"I don't feel anything. You don't feel about an opinion."
"You do remember, a few minutes ago, you called my opinion pigswill?"
"Yes."
A weak emotional argument. Then you accused me of being soft in the head. Those negative emotions are popping out of your heart."
"Ridiculous!"
"When you get a debatable argument or two talk to me."

Scoffers and the Last Days

The Bible tells what God thinks about scoffers. He says they are deceitful. Peter tells us to know this first. In 2 Peter verse 3 it says that scoffers shall come during the last days that "walk after their own lusts." The Bible tells us to walk with the Lord.

In verse 4, they question the Lord's coming back and say everything is like it always was since creation.  In verse 5, he explains they are ignorant by dint of will because they are "wilfully ignorant." It takes an act of the will to believe or to disbelieve. We are responsible for our acts of will. The scoffers are ignorant by choice. Dint has some interesting synonyms: effort, strain, exertion, and struggle according to Thesaurus.com.

The Bible says that the fool says there in no God. But by effort of will and scoffing they strain, struggle, and exert themselves against the word of the Lord.

He continues in verse 5: "For this they are wilfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God."  Verse 6  "Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." So things haven't always been the same. He eludes to the biblical flood. He explains that everything exists by God's word which the scoffers don't believe.

Verse 7 continues saying the world that now exists will perish in fire, but for now it exists by God's word, and is retained for judgment of the ungodly and their perdition.

Peter finishes by warning the believer not to be ignorant. He says to understand that 1 day and a thousand years are the same to God. He is patient and doesn't want anyone to perish. What seems like a delay to people of the Lord's coming isn't a delay, but a display of God's patience. He wants all to repent and come to Him.

God Speaks and His Sheep Hear Him

The Lord Jesus speaks to us. The Bible says that his sheep will know his voice. This sounds ambiguous to the scoffer. The antonym for scoff is praise. So, the opposite to praise is to scoff. They are polar opposites like sin and holiness or sin and purity, and so forth.

But to those that praise Him he will speak. It may be through the small, still voice, that inner voice. He talks to believers through other believers whether in person, on radio, a video, at church, at work, and so on.

His sheep of course are the believers: Christians. They recognize His voice and they follow Him. He comes into our thoughts. He talks to us when we pray. But this requires a two-way communication.
So, the individual has to have listening time during prayer time. If we don't stop and listen, wait to hear, we will miss part of the conversation.

God touches our hearts. In Acts 16:14, a woman named Lydia is described as a seller of purple. She sells purple cloth. She listens to Paul's preaching and God touches her heart, so she would really give thought to what Paul was teaching. We see that God speaks through His word.

God speaks to us through dreams. He did this with biblical figures like Joseph, and the magi. Basically, the idea is this, God uses people and things to communicate with us, and sometimes speaks in our minds, and speaks out loud to some people.

Christmas Censored, Christmas Manger Scenes Denied

Many had tried to do it, the Grinch and other malcontents. But it had never been done. No success. But then, out of the void came an empty voice. It had no basis or support, morally.

No one really paid attention, at first. Who were these upstarts that disagreed with Christmas? How could they? Why would they?  Didn't they like "Jingle Bells" and presents? It was ascertained that they didn't dislike the songs and presents. Well, some of the songs they found inappropriate. They didn't like a certain name that many people liked very much.

There were a few of these disagreeable sorts all along. But who ever heard from them? Hardly anyone. That was good. But eventually, the voice of the void rose louder, shriller, and cruder. The empty, legless words gained a bit more audience. The colander like nonsense began to stick in more minds. It should have sifted through, recognized as deranged verbiage, but that didn't always occur.

It found its home in minds unlit. Cubicles where darkness reigned. Self-appointed word-cops proclaimed their insidious message. They gained fame. It seemed to some, they had authority. Businesses stopped employees from rejoicing with "Merry Christmas."

What? Asked the old-timers, the wise ones, those of depth. What verbal nonsense is this?

The Dead Lawyers like walking mummy's clattered and chattered. They outlawed Christmas manger scenes on public squares. The warm heartfelt hearth of the public square at Christmas, couldn't nestle the Baby anymore. Many cried tears of sorrow and rage at such injustice. Their voices were shouted down by nefarious word-cops and the Dead Lawyers.

To think that an innocent babe has been censored and Christmas Nativity scenes disrespected. 'Tis a shame. Will it get worse? Yes. But the Babe wins at story's end.

Seven Deadly Sins: Avarice

Avarice is the desire for money that is unquenchable. No matter how much it is never enough. This thought suggests a biblical quote.

"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (1 Timothy 6:10). 

The original word is philarguria. It means according to Strong's Concordance: love of money, avarice, covetousness.

How can this lusting for money be the root of all kinds of evil? Let's see. Paul is teaching Timothy about false teachers that are really in it for gain and renown. He exhorts his pupil to teach sound doctrine while warning him of people teaching false doctrine.

This is the end of verse 5: "Imagining that godliness is a means of gain." He says that they distort sound doctrine to get wealth. Distorting doctrine misleads people and causes division. When people recognize a false teacher it causes some to lose faith and emboldens the ungodly to speak falsely against Christianity.

But in verse 6 he explains that being godly and content is the correct and bona fide source of tremendous gain.

The love of money or greediness causes people to murder, lie, cheat, and steal. It causes them to be jealous of other people and to envy them. These are sins and the Bible definitely states in many places that sin is against God's holiness. For instance:

"To you alone I have sinned and have committed wickedness before you because you shall be just in your word and you shall conquer in your judgment" (Psalm 54:1) (Aramaic Bible in Plain English).

Actually, people break the first commandment when they let something become more important to them than God because they make it an idol. Loving money and not just using it as a tool makes it an idol. Thus, an inordinate liking of money causes people to hurt others and to insult the holiness and righteousness of God our Father.

Also, people cause their own sorrow when they sin. They hurt themselves and if they don't repeat, they cause the ultimate harm to themselves, assigning themselves to hell.

Bakers and Threats: Florida, Oregon

Threatening people is wrong. What is hard to understand about that? It seems some people don't get it. But really it is because sin has gotten into their hearts. The sin in question is hate.

When people make death threats hate is at the core of the action. We are supposed to love our neighbor, not hate them. This hatred causes people to be unjust. Threats concerning a person's business are wrong too.

Two cases in point are the Oregon bakers that were fined for not baking a wedding cake for two lesbians and the Florida baker that refused to bake a cake that stated, "We do not support gay marriage." Haller, the Florida bakery owner says that people started calling the bakery making vile remarks and threats to her business.

Both bakery owners received threats. In either case, the people making the threats are wrong.

Pride or Vanity, One of the Seven Deadly Sins

The sin of pride is committed when someone thinks he is better than other people. In other words, he has an inordinate sense of his own worth. He doesn't think well of himself within logical limits.

His expanded ego rejects God and his grace and has a low opinion of others. 

But don't confuse sinful pride or vanity with the good feeling of doing a job well, inventing a gadget, or writing a song.  Pride that is sinful is immoderate and it knows no limits in shutting God out and putting other people down and walking over them like fodder.

These are synonyms for pride as in sin: arrogance, conceit, snobbery, haughtiness, narcissism, or hubris meaning excessive pride or vanity or superiority.

The Bible has much to say about pride or vanity.

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).  

Being egotistical is destructive to self. You can't win a popularity contest that way, but more importantly, it is detrimental to your soul and spiritual well-being. This haughtiness makes the prideful treat others badly. It is self-righteousness.

¹⁷ You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” ^18" But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today" (Deuteronomy 8:17-18.)

We enter the world with nothing and go out with nothing. Some may be born to rich parents, but the wealth stays on earth and all go to an eternal destiny. While in this earthly realm, it is best to acknowledge where we get our life, intelligence, creativity, and other abilities from. We didn't invent them for ourselves.

Producing riches whether money, accumulating valuable property, jewels, expensive art works, businesses and so on should rightly be credited to the sense and abilities God gave an individual. If someone doesn't give God the praise and isn't thankful to God for his abundance, then pride has overcome him because he gave in to this sin. 


"For all that is in the world, the [1] lust of the flesh and the [2] lust of the eyes and the [3] boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world." (1 John 2:16).

The boastful pride of life means something that leads to arrogance or bigheadedness. It is related to being boastful which is such as swaggering and self-applauding. A person full of vanity doesn't recognize his sinfulness and need for forgiveness. He is so wrapped up in himself that he can't see his need for God.

"These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren" (Proverbs 6, 16:19).

 Proverbs says that God hates a proud look. The Hebrew word denotes a continuing action or routine. This is a state of being in pride or a proud look. It is the status quo of the vain person.