Cahalen Morrison & Eli West

Cahalen Morrison & Eli West from fretboardjournal on Vimeo.

Can we be honest about Alligator Lizards?

Can we be honest with each other?  Really, can we?  Here is some evidence that I would like to bring before you about the nature of men.  All men (and yes, that includes scientist, politicians, authors, teachers, and celebrities too).

• Psalm 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
• Romans 3:4  let God be true, but every man a liar;
• Psalm 116:11 I said in my haste, All men are liars.
• Romans 3:13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 
• Jeremiah 10:14  Every man is brutish [stupid; barbarous] in his knowledge:

Now that we are are drooping like a wet sock, let's consider the following:

• Psalm 119:160 Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.
• Psalm 117:2 For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endureth for ever.
• Psalm 147:5  Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

There is truth, but it isn't found in your heart and it isn't found in the wisdom of men. Since the beginning, Satan has attacked God’s word telling Eve “Ye shall not surely die” when God said they would if they ate the fruit.  Eve had to ask herself “who am I going to believe?”  It was a direct attack on the authority of God’s word.  Every since, man and Devil alike have attacked God’s word, its truthfulness, its accuracy, its reliability, its authenticity; yet the Word of God remains!  We must use the bible as our proof and standard, because it is the best proof and it would be foolish not to. 


When it comes to creation, marriage, politics, family, or anything area of life, why should the Christian give more credence and weight to a man than the pure Word of God? Why follow an actor who makes a living pretending to be someone else, reading what someone else wrote. Who are you going to believe? 


Some will trust their souls on the words of a musician or musical artists (or is it arteests?). If you are caught up in the hype and are being influenced by a rock star here is a fun exercise. Write down the lyrics and read them out loud in front of people. That should sufficiently reveal the weight of their intellectual fire power and perhaps shed some light on their inability to be a guide for your eternal soul. As the poets of America profoundly said...

Cause the free wind is blowin' through your hair 
And the days surround your daylight there 
Seasons crying no despair 
Alligator lizards in the air, in the air 


Did di di di dit ... 


Alligator lizards indeed.

Introduction to Hosea

It is truly a worthwhile endeavor to grasp Old Testament history. I don't mean knowing stories from the Old Testament, but having in your mind the historical flow of the OT, especially in the divided kingdom. Knowing who wrote the book, the condition of the people to whom he wrote it can help us when we read the minor prophets.


Chronologically, Hosea is the fourth (possibly fifth, depending on where Joel falls) in the minor prophets. Hosea came right after Amos, but the Israel Hosea knew was not the same as when Amos preached. Amos prophesied in the height of Israel’s financial prosperity but foretold of their downfall. Hosea lived in the fruit of their cow-worshiping, lawless religion of false gods. 

 First, B.H. Carroll and then George Allen Smith, which was quoted by Baxter’s Explore the Book.

“The period covered by his prophetic utterances was undoubtedly the darkest in the whole history of the kingdom of Israel. Political life was characterized by anarchy and misrule. The throne was occupied by men who obtained possession by the murder of their predecessors and the people were governed by military despotism. Zechariah was slain after a reign of six months; Shallum, after only one month. A dozen years later Pekahiah was assassinated by Pekah, who met the same fate at the hands of Hoshea. All these were ungodly rulers, and the morals of the nation were sinking to the lowest ebb. The conditions were terrible in the extreme; luxurious living, robbery, oppression, falsehood, adultery, murder, accompanied by the most violent intolerance of any form of rebuke.”
--B.H. Carroll


“It is not only , as in Amos, the sins of luxurious, of them that are at eas in Zion, which are exposed; but also literal bloodshed, highway robbery with murder, abetted by the priests. Amos looked out on foreign nations across a quiet Israel; his views of the world are wide and clear; but in the Book of Hosea the dust is up, and into what is happening beyond the frontier we get only glimpses. There is enough, however, to make visible another great change since the days of Jeroboam. Israel’s self-reliance is gone. She is as fluttered as a startled bird; ‘thy call Egypt; they go to Assyria’ (7:2). But everything is hopeless; kings cannot save; for Ephraim is seized by the pangs of a fatal crisis.”


“There could be no greater contract (than Hosea) to that fixture of conscience which renders the Book of Amos so simple in argument, so firm in style. Amos is the prophet of law: he sees the Divine processes work themselves out, irrespective of the moods and intrigues of the people, with which, after all, he was little familiar. So each of his paragraphs moves steadily forward to a climax, and every climax is doom – the captivity of the people to Assyria. You can divide the book by these things; it has its periods, strophes and refrains. It marches like the host of the Lord of hosts. But Hosea had no such unhampered vision of great laws. He was too familiar with the rapid changes of his fickle people; and his affection for them was too anxious. His style has all the restlessness and irritableness of hunger about it – the hunger of love.”
--George Adam Smith

Proverbs 25:11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.


**This was first published a couple years ago
______________________________________________________________________


Douglas Newell IV

Compared to what?

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, chapter 1

"On the other hand, it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. For (such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity. Convinced, however, we are not, if we look to ourselves only, and not to the Lord also - He being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced"

"For, since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself. And since nothing appears within us or around us that is not tainted with very great impurity, so long as we keep our mind within the confines of human pollution, anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure just as an eye, to which nothing but black had been previously presented, deems an object of a whitish, or even of a brownish hue, to be perfectly white."

Price of Peace?

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

This question has haunted me over the last week. It says a lot about people who will give up liberty for safety and peace. There was a time when men believed in eternity. When there were things that were higher than our bodies, our safety, our comfort. When men would hazard for truth and the glory of God and the good of their fellow man. I've been listening to biographies of American Christian hero's recently, and one thing they had in common was how they lived sacrificially. They believed they were in the hands of a Sovereign God and that they were bought and purchased by the blood of Christ and they were safe in Him. Many were soundly Calvinistic in theology and had a firm reliance and trust in God's providence and would gladly lay down their lives for what was right. Not all thought like that, as is made plain in quote above. Patrick Henry asks a good question. What is the cost of peace?


In fact, one could go further and ask if it was really peace that they had. Henry asked if they would purchase their "peace" with chains and slavery. They could live and they could avoid war, but it would cost them freedom and liberty. Not only for them but for all the colonies and subsequent generations. The war was not over high taxes, that is a over simplification of the war. There was long and settled constitutional practices that were being trampled upon. Did they actually have peace, or did they have a lack of  immediate conflict? I contend that the avoidance of inevitable conflict is not peace.


Peace at any cost is no peace at all. When there is tyrany and wickedness, there can be no peace. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said “These easy-going, peace at any price people are often lacking in a sense of justice and righteousness; they do not stand where they should stand; they are flabby. They appear to be nice; but if the whole world were run on such principles and by such people it would be even worse than it is today.  So I would add that your true peacemaker is not an “appeaser”, as we say today.  You can postpone war by appeasement; but it generally means that you are doing something that is unjust and unrighteous in order to avoid war. The mere avoidance of war does not make peace; it does not solve the problem.” 


I'm afraid too often we conveniently say I want peace, I won't fight, when we really mean I want no conflict -which isn't really the same thing. 


I have been encouraged and blessed by learning about these godly men. I'm a victim of the public school system, so I learned that George Washington was the first president and he may or may not have chopped down a cherry tree. We fought a war against the British and one, and there used to be 13 stars on the flag because there were 13 colonies. Time for recess. 
You can Patrick Henry's whole speech or download and listen to a dramatic reading HERE.

Doug -

Dan'l Boone

David Grisman and Mike Barnett - Fretboard Journal from fretboardjournal on Vimeo.


Here is a video of my favorite mandolin player David Grisman (aka Dawg) and Mike Barnett playing Dan'l Boone.

Enjoy!

The Image of the Invisible God

The book of Colossians was written while the apostle Paul was in a Roman prison. Epaphras was the pastor of the church at Colosse and had made a long, dangerous journey of over 1,000 miles to speak to Paul. Overall, the church at Colosse was spiritually sound. However, there were some false teachings coming into the church – some thoughts and ideas and doctrines that put “secrecy wisdom” ahead of God’s Word. It would develop into what is called Gnosticism.

The book of Colossians deals with that heresy by giving the antidote to it – The Lord Jesus Christ.   Their problem was a mixture of a type of Judaism, mysticism and philosophy that corrupted the truth about who Jesus Christ is. Much like many of the cults today (Mormonism, J.W.) they were using the words of Christianity, but applying different doctrines and philosophies and meanings to the words.

There were many errors, many serious problems in the church, but there was one answer that was the antidote to all the problems—Christ is enough. Christ is all and in all. He is sufficient. He is the creator, He is the Savior, He is the Head of the church, He is our Lord  that in all things he might have the preeminence (Col. 1:18). The first chapter tells us who the Lord Jesus Christ is instead of telling why all the other heresies were wrong. Jesus is the Godman. Edwin Dargin said “We have in these verses on of the most profound and important passages in all the writings of Paul.” 


Col 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

John MacArthur:

"Unlike man, Jesus Christ is the perfect, absolutely accurate image of God. He did not become the image of God at the incarnation, but has been that from all eternity. Hebrews 1:3 describes Jesus as the radiance of God's glory." Christ reflects God's attributes, as the sun's light reflects the sun. Further, He is said to be the exact  representation  of God's nature. Charakter ("exact representation") refers to an engraving tool, or stamp. Jesus is the exact likeness of God. He is in the very form of God (Philippians 2:6). That is why He could say He who has seen me has seen the Father". In Christ, the invisible God became visible "and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father" John 1:14."

The verses go on to describe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. Far from this verse showing that Jesus was a created being, these verses show He is God. The irony in the J.W. using these verses in Colossians is that the book was written to combat a heresy very similar to their own. The book was written to show that Jesus was not an angel, a gnostic emanations, an eon, but God himself.

Our family was studying this passage when we were interrupted by a knock on the door. I was handed some literature and was provided with an illustration of why it is important for Christians to know what the Bible says about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listen to God, not your heart.

Proverbs 28:26  He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.

Matthew Henry says:

"The character of a fool: He trusts to his own heart, to his own wisdom and counsels, his own strength and sufficiency, his own merit and righteousness, and the good opinion he has of himself; he that does so is a fool, for he trusts to that, not only which is deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9), but which has often deceived him. This implies that it is the character of a wise man (as before, Prov. 28:25) to put his trust in the Lord, and in his power and promise, and to follow his guidance, Prov. 3:5, Prov. 3:6. 2. The comfort of a wise man: He that walks wisely, that trusts not to his own heart, but is humble and self-diffident, and goes on in the strength of the Lord God, he shall be delivered; when the fool, that trusts in his own heart, shall be destroyed."

Over the Rainbow and Psalm 18

No, over the Rainbow and Psalm 18 is not a lame sermon illustration, but a Sunday acoustical musical extravaganza! Not one, but two - that's right, TWO songs for your abundant, auditory amusement.

Up first we have, courtesy of the Fretboard Journal, John Reischman playing Over the Rainbow on the mandolin.




To close things out, Natan Clark George with a rendention of Psalm 18. (Right click to download.) The second link, if one were adventurous enough to click it and because Mr. Clark is a good brother, you would discover that he has provided for you the chords and lyrics! So, click away my guitar pickin' friends. Click, listen, worship, learn and then play at your church and use the gifts God has given you to worship in the assembly.

Psalm 18 along with the chords and lyrics.


Enjoy!