Message From The MessengerThe Problem Of Authority

... a Message from the Messenger
Bible 1611.Com / Sluice Box Adventures.com / Old Paths Baptist Mission © 2014

This subject deals with the break down in our society of one the most basic requirements needed for any family or any human organization to function or work and indeed is needed for us to survive.

 

 • The Lying Spirit
• Three Very Different High School Students
• The First Student
• The Second Student
• The Third Student
• The 1st Incident … Peacham Academy
• The 2nd Incident … The United States Navy
• God's Laughter In Heaven!
• The Bible-Believing Way

It was the winter of 1996, and it is a mild winter, unlike those of years ago.

I decided to retrace for my family the “rabbit run" of my earlier years in New England.

To do this we had to run the "The Silver Fox" (our affectionate term for our '89 Ford Crown Victoria wagon) on a 2,800-mile jaunt in six days through eight states.

One of the places we went to was the former site of Peacham Academy in Peacham, Vermont. (The old academy building burnt down in 1976.)

As we stood there before a very accurate miniature replica of the building, my thoughts were coming together about the subject of this message.

 I. The Lying Spirit

Insanity!  Insanity!  One has to wonder at the insanity we see today in America.  One has to wonder of the “vain" imaginations and "the darkened" foolish hearts as revealed in our sense of political correctness.  Nowhere is this manifestation of our corporate insanity so greatly shown but by our wicked philosophy in the rearing of our children.

Do you remember the old principle that is revealed in the Old Black Book (the A.V. 1611), which God wrote, "sin will drive you crazy"   Just try messing with the Book, and you will see what will happen!  Just look at America!  Can you not see the mess that we are in as a nation?  We have messed with His Book!  And God has messed with us!  You ask, "Well, would a God of love (I John 4:8) mess with our minds and with the minds of our very leaders?"

Now please, don't take my word for it.  Check it out.  Go on down to any public school and listen to the teachers of our "outcome-based education."  Or better yet, go on down to any bookstore or library and find out what Hillary Rodham Clinton has said in her book, It Takes a Village.  God has put a lying spirit in the mouth of our leaders, and in the mouth of our news media, and in the mouth of the NEA, and in our national thought.

In II Chronicles 18 a bizarre event is recorded. "Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab" (verse 1).  What is a godly king doing hanging around a wicked king?  "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9). "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners" (I Corinthians 15:33). "And after certain years he went down to Ahab to Samaria" (verse 2).

Please read the whole passage!  It will shake you up!  Look at what Ahab and the false prophets were doing.  God will mess with your mind if you are guilty of this!  They were taking "counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us" (Psalm 2:2b-3).

In verses 18-22 is the strange scene.  "Again he (Micaiah) said, Therefore hear the word of the LORD; I saw the LORD sitting upon his throne, and all the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left.

And the LORD said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead?

And one spake saying after this manner, and another saying after that manner.

Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him.

And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.

And the LORD said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so.

 Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil against thee.”

II. Three Very Different Vermont High School Students:

The First Student

It was thirty years ago, (late 1966) amidst the deeply snow-blanketed Green Mountains of northern Vermont, when I became a boarding student at Peacham Academy.  The DYFS for the State of Connecticut had "yanked" me from the jurisdiction of my parents because of my ill behavior at home and in the public schools.  I was a pretty rotten troubled kid.  I can remember "rabbit-punching" my teacher Mr. Kelson (poor man) in my sixth grade classroom at the Washington Elementary School in Manchester, Connecticut.  No matter how many "bean bags" they had me throw, or how many "tests" "the shrinks" had me take, the DYFS could not figure out my true problem.

That was in 1961 when I really started to give my parents (and the whole public school system) a “FIT!"  How in the world the DYFS finally came to the conclusion (after trying everything else) that they should send me to some old-fashioned, strict-disciplined small school in northern New England (where there are more cows than there are people!)  I do not know. It took them four years to figure it out!

They tried everything out that the old reprobate, Dr. Spock, gave on how to raise our children.  Those public schools just did not know how to handle me, and my parents did not know how to handle me!  With the crop of children coming up in the 1960's (my generation) "the fruit" of John Dewey's vision for the public schools in the 20th century was becoming apparent.

 The Second Student

John Dewey was that atheistic, immoral, evolutionist who can rightly be charged to have destroyed our educational system by excluding the God of our A.V.1611 Bible.  It was John Dewey who taught that children should be critical of custom and authority.  The man believed in "situation ethics", claiming that the morality of an action depended on the situation and not on the application of a law.  For John Dewey there would be no absolutes (just relativity).  What's more, he interpreted moral judgments as being dependent on values and evaluation, hence on a value theory.  Hello out there! Have you ever heard of Values Clarification?  Old John Dewey was steeped in "HEDONISM," believing that only pleasure is good as an end.

Here is the Creed John Dewey Had For America's Public Schools:

1. The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the test of right and wrong.

2. One ought to do that act of all those available in the circumstances that would produce the most good.

3. The ultimate end is the full development or perfection of the self.

4. Moral principles cannot be proved.

5. There are no moral truths.

6. Morality has no rational basis.

7. The difference between right and wrong is merely a matter of taste or convention.

8. There is no one correct moral code for all times and peoples.

The Third Student

The story of George Dewey as told in The Genuine Whipping by Major Panghorn is one that I heard for the first time while listening to my pastor Ronald Blough, preaching a series of messages on the Christian home at the Littleton Baptist Church, Littleton, New Hampshire.

"Admiral Dewey, the hero of Manila in the Spanish-American War, tells us that a good whipping kept him from being a criminal. An Indiana farmer, in 1898, published the following remarkable story telling how the boy who later became Admiral George Dewey, the hero of Manila in the Spanish-American War, was an unprincipled bully as a boy, headed for a life of crime and saved for society by a genuine whipping. The whipping was delivered by Z.K. Panghorn, Major in the Civil War and later Congressman. Here's what it said:

Major Panghorn, of Jersey City, the only man who ever whipped Admiral George Dewey, was nominated for Congress a few days ago by the Republicans of Hudson County District, New Jersey. Major Panghorn whipped Dewey while he was a student at a backwoods school near Montpelier, Vermont, one half a century ago.

When Dewey was a boy, Panghorn, according to the story, being fresh from college, undertook the management of a district school in Montpelier. The school had been in rebellion. Dewey was the leader of the 'Anti-teacher Brigade.' Several teachers had been removed, and one had been stood on his head in a snow-bank.

(At this point the congregation breaks out in laughter, and Pastor Ronald Blough says, "You try it!")

It was generally said in Montpelier that nobody could govern that school. When Panghorn appeared the first day, he noticed Dewey up a tree throwing stones at small boys. 'Stop that!' the teacher said sharply. 'Go to blazes!' Dewey said from his perch. Panghorn provided himself with a rawhide which he tucked away over the schoolhouse door. He placed several clubs of good hickory on the top of a pile in an old wood box.

The following day, Panghorn was about to punish some unruly scholars when Dewey stepped up to his desk and said, 'Look here, teacher, we're gonna give you the best lickin' you ever had.' 'Take your seats!' ordered Panghorn. Dewey shot out his right fist and it landed dangerously near Panghorn's jaw.Instantly, the teacher seized the rawhide and Dewey was writhing under the lash! When the other boys tried to go to Dewey's help, the teacher seized the hickory clubs and, with one piece in each hand, struck the boys around him with such vigor they soon ran. He gave it to Dewey hot and heavy and it wasn't long before the future conqueror of the Philippines was begging for mercy, for the first and only time of his life.

That put an end to the rebellion. Dewey and Panghorn have been warm friends ever since. Dewey recently said to the Major, 'I never cease to be grateful to you. You made a man of me. But for the thrashing you gave me, I would probably be a state prisoner.' Many another man, as with Admiral Dewey, was saved from prison by a good whipping. Many others are in jail who could have been saved to society as good citizens by discipline."

The words were transcribed from his fifth message given on July 3,1983.  It is a remarkable story showing how, even in the absence of the instruction of a Bible-believing father, that a boy will respond to authority with a respectful obedience, if that boy is met (in a head-on collision) with one who will bravely administer an old-fashioned "sound thrashing."

An incident, such as this, has many a time changed the course of many a boy. I know it has for me. I may not have had a Christian home (where I received the instruction of a father) but in God's providential grace, as a young man, GOD provided for me, at just the right time, the men that would be willing to grapple with me and straighten me up.

Incident #1 … Peacham Academy

In Peacham, Vermont, on that sky-blue-lit wintry day, I remember walking up into the old Academy building to begin my schoolin' the way it was done years before when the people had at least some of the remnants of biblical principles.  I was in for a shock!  I was used to the permissiveness of the public schools and getting my own way as a spoiled, ill-behaved brat.  Little did I know that "Lesson No. 1" was coming up for me!  I will never forget what happened that one cold winter night.

 Let me explain. In the wisdom of the school's administration, they designated an old, white-haired, grizzly-faced, retired merchant mariner from Boothbay Harbor, Maine, to be our study hall teacher.

Carl Linekin was of the old school, and he perfectly understood how to handle a bunch of trouble-making teenage boys.  That "one particular" night, all of us boys got pretty bold and wanted to test that old teacher and try to scare him.  The bad mouthing started going around the room, and one shouted:  "Hey, Linekin, what ya goin’ to do if we all come up there and beat you up? Aren't ya afraid?"  I was an excited participant.  It was fun to belittle his authority.  Now, what happened next brought shocking silence and sobriety to all of us.

That old merchant mariner was unfazed.  Carl Linekin just looked at us stone-cold in the face and declared: "Just come on up here and try it, boys!"

You see, Carl Linekin was displaying a "38 revolver."  We all took a long look at that gun.  The old teacher had given us a lesson.  He showed us the person who really was in charge!  At that moment, Carl Linekin won our respect and admiration.  The night study halls now became productive periods of time where each of us did our required homework. (In the summer of 1967, Carl Linekin died, as far as I know, without having trusted Jesus Christ.  Yet, by this man, I had gained something that still remains).

Incident #2 …The United States Navy

The story goes on. 

Twenty-five years ago, with the blustery cold of Lake Michigan's watery expanse nearby, I would, as a sailor at the Great Lakes Training Center, experience "Incident #2".  In 1972, when this incident occurred, the United States Navy was losing its effectiveness as a military organization under its new Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. Discipline was no longer being pushed and a general malaise was moving into the Naval ranks.

The social decay of the 1960's was creeping into America's military.  I was an on-the-scene witness of that while going to Electronics Technician Class "A" School.

 My rotten attitude towards the rules was shown by my classroom behavior.  I would sit in my chair and write foolish poetry (jibberish) while the instructor did his best to try to ignore me. 

Now, if I had tried to perform this malarkey in the Navy of just a few years earlier, the old instructor would have just trounced all over me and I would have been thrown headfirst into a snow bank.

Good Ol' Admiral Zumwalt's new Navy was just the right kind of place for those like me who liked to buck the authority.  Yeah, I got away with murder, so to speak.  Nobody really would take me to task, in what was known as “A-1" and "A-2" phase of my training.

After graduation from "A-2", my classmates and I began our "A-3" phase.  I can remember the first mustering in the hallway outside our new classroom and being singled out for the order to report directly to the office. "Oh, well, let's see what the ol' chief wants."  I walked in the Chief's office and stood loosely at attention while waiting for him to look up from his desk where he was greatly absorbed in studying something.  After what seemed a long time (probably two minutes), Chief Kion put the cold blue-eyed stare on me and snapped loudly: "Aten'hut' sailor!"

I felt sudden immediate response throughout my body to the authoritative commanding voice of this man.  He waved this "hardcard" at me (which was my record from A1 and A2 phases) and said with a strong measured cadence:

"St.James, I don't like the looks of this hardcard. You will not get away with it here with me. Do you understand, because, I'll just knock your block off. Get it?"

"Yes sir, I understand."

From that day forward, and as long as I was under his jurisdiction, I became a good sailor.

III. God's Laughter In The Heaven Above!

Now what does God think of all this malarky?  The answer is easy, that is, if you believe the BOOK that God wrote. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision" (Psalm 2:4).

Amazing isn't it?  He laughs in a derisive manner at the whole bunch of them, i.e., John Dewey, the DYFS, the news media, the NEA, the governmental leaders and anyone else who hates authority (His Authority-The BIBLE of the English Reformation, the A.V. 1611). As we march right up into the 21st century, our national leaders in step with the 'one world' government, have shaken the fist defiantly in God's face.

They think they have gotten rid of God and His Book from ruling over us as a nation.  We have to admit, that we are a bunch of rebels! And if not for his grace, there would be nothing coming for us but judgment. (2 Peter 3:9) "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

 If not for God's grace in my life I would still be on the road to Hell.  I see in retrospect how God used those "two incidents" in my life to keep me from real trouble and from criminal mischief.

I didn't have a Bible-believing family upbringing or even an opportunity when growing up to sit and hear the Gospel in a local Bible-believing Baptist church (or any church for that matter).  I just am so thankful to the Lord Jesus Christ for interrupting the course of my life and for dying for my sins and saving me with his so great salvation.  Amen! Amen! Amen!  But for that interruption by God in my life, I'd be with the rest of the world when He will "break them with a rod of iron;" (and) "shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

IV. The Bible Believing Way

Sometime ago, in an earlier message, The House Of The Rechabites, I concluded with this statement in regard to the beauty of children obeying their parents even in the inconsequential things or benign things in this life. "Even more remarkable is God's testimony flowered unto sons and daughters who obey their fathers in the things that are of themselves pure and innocent as the sowing of seed, as the planting of a vineyard, as the building of a house or the drinking of wine" (the fruit of the vine, grape juice). 

If you will recall the story of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, you will have to wonder why his children for several generations obeyed his instructions. "My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and keep my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them on the table of thine heart." (Proverbs 7:1-3)

Why did Jonadab succeed where so many of us have failed! Certainly one reason for his success is that Jonadab was a God fearing man who loved the Lord God and loved His BOOK.  God's word must have been hid in his heart in a persevering exercise so that he would not forget His word.   "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word." (Psalm 119:9-16).

Yet this evidently is not enough.  To fear God and to love Him and His Book is not enough to have success in having such children as Jonadab did.

1 Samuel 7:8-12 "And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the LORD our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the LORD: and Samuel cried unto the LORD for Israel; and the LORD heard him. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel: but the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them, until they came under Bethcar. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us."

Samuel was a mighty prophet of God, "and the Lord heard him." God was with him before the battle, in the battle and after the battle. Oh! Only if we could say the same thing about ourselves!  Samuel was able to say: "Hitherto hath the LORD helped us!" Samuel was a powerful man of God. Nevertheless, in spite of his walk with God, he failed to achieve success in rearing his children up to the Lord. "And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment." (I Samuel 8:3)

No!  Being a Bible believer does not in itself mean your sons and daughters will turn out like Jonadab's children (and descendants). Now, what did Jonadab do that was so different from Samuel (or for that matter most Bible-believing Christians today)?  Jonadab experienced (as a precursor) the fulfillment of a future prophecy.

Turn to Luke 1:17. "And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." John the Baptist went before the Lord "to make ready a people."

In Malachi 4:5, we see the prophecy of this event, but it is verse six that I want you to see. "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

You see, Jonadab was a forerunner and is an example to us.  His heart yearned for his children, and he acted in accord, in kinship, placing his heart into an entwining relationship with the souls of his own children.  Before you pass (or dismiss) this last statement, please turn to I Samuel 18:1. "And it came to pass, when he made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul."

Isn't that beautiful?  What an endearing term "knit" is!  Jonadab must have experienced with his children, hearts that were knitted together in a lasting bond.  So the father cries out! "My Son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways." (Proverbs 23:26)  But it is not enough for a father to cry this out: "My Son, give me thine heart!" Yes, two things the father must be.

To review:

1. A father must be a God fearing man.

2. A father must have his heart toward his children.

There must now be a performance of several things in order "for his prayers to have feets" (so to speak) for his children, as Jonadab’s did, and to "bring them up to the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4b)

Part of this act of turning his heart toward the children (or knitting his heart to the children's heart) inherently involves several very important things that need to be performed, and once this is accomplished (hearts knitted) then there must be also a maintenance of it (that is, hearts kept).

Let's look at them.

The Things Needed To Raise Children Up To The Lord

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

1. The father must be born again, saved by the blood of the Lamb from the wrath of God (that is, from being cast in the "Lake Of Fire" which is the second death).

2. Having a saved, virtuous woman for his wife who is grave, "sober, faithful in all things" (I Timothy 3:11) and whose "children arise up, and call her blessed" (Proverbs 31:28).

Don't ever misunderstand the importance of a good woman as your wife, men!  Husbands, you should love her, "even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." (Ephesians 5:25)

3. The father must not provoke the children to wrath (Ephesians 6:10).  He must not put the children under (or in the system) where the influence of John Dewey is in control.  Brethren, remember Psalm 1. "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”

4. The father should keep the "spirit" of Deuteronomy chapter 6 for the rule of the home.

"Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon of thy house, and on thy gates." (Deut. 6:1-9)

5. The father should promote the family relationship to the children and limit the peer relationships.  I realize this last statement about limiting the peer relationship caused the “wrinkling" of the facial muscles in many of your faces, but the children really need more interaction with their parents (with adults) than with their peers.  This is stated in direct opposition to John Dewey's philosophy, the NEA and every social humanist.

6. The father should be "even handed," firm, loving, and consistent in his discipline of his children, keeping always God's Book as his guide.

"Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.

Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.

Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."