Cover Up

My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father -- Jesus Christ, the righteous One. He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world -- 1 John 2:1-2

After a couple of days of really bad stuff, including a bunged-up hand which was very inconvenient and the loss of my voice, which is much less so, we are back to John's First Epistle.

I don't like the word 'sin'. For one thing it has a built-in condemnation factor for a lot of us. I always see a fundamentalist preacher with a big black Bible looking down his nose at me. My language is sometimes less than perfect. I know a whole bunch of bad words, and I can employ them effectively in context. Not long ago I had taken time away from work and driven twenty miles to take my wife to a doctor. It was her first visit, so I filled out the long information form for her. She took it up to the receptionist, and, in a minute or two, called me over. I do not give medical people my SSN, since our insurance company has a subscriber number in addition to the group number we are supposed to use. The office would not accept us unless I gave them my SSN. I didn't tell them to go to hell or to screw themselves. I just shrugged and said we'd take our business to someone who wasn't such a bureaucratic Gestapo idiot. I then began the arduous process of dragging my foaming-at-the-mouth wife out of the reception area to the main door. She’s small but wiry. It’s a lot like giving one of my cats a bath.

As we were exiting the building, I expressed my disgust with the word "dumb-ass". Now I think that's pretty innocuous, especially given that my wife needed treatment, and I had just wasted over an hour on a bunch of medical brownshirts. I said it, though, out loud -- and my "out loud" is first of all loud. A man was coming into the building just at that moment, and I recognized him as a missionary I had met some months before. He did not recognize me, but we talked for a moment. As we parted company, he sort of gently chided me to "be careful about what you say. You never know who is going to be around." I chuckled and refrained from saying, “Ain’t that the eff’in’ truth.”

It really did strike me as more amusing than convicting. First, I'm pretty sure God thinks they are dumb-asses, too. As far as being unkind, I prefer being compared to a quadruped lacking the ability to vocalize rather than, say, an intentionally malicious jackbooted fascist. But even more to the point, I do know God is always around, and I worry a lot more about offending Him than anyone else -- even missionaries, God bless 'em.

Anyway, the work of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus in John 16 is to "convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment". For the world, the sin is a refusal to believe in Christ (see John 16:8-11). But, as Matthew Henry and others would point out, there are "Christianized ... and unchristianized, converted and unconverted sinners" (Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on 1 John 2:1-2). Even as Christians, we, to use the most common meaning of sin, "miss the mark", fail to effectively do our job and carry out the Lord's will.

That, I suppose, is the bad news. It is inevitable that we will not love one another adequately, that we will be fearful and anxious at times, that we will act in greedy self-interest, avenge our own hurts, and dismiss the still, small voice of the Spirit.

The good news is that Jesus is the propitiation or expiation of all sin. On the Ark of the Covenant there were two cherubim carved on the cover. The cover of the Ark and especially the area between the two figures and under their outstretched wings was the “mercy seat”. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies and refreshed the covering of blood upon the mercy seat. Beneath, inside the Ark, were the commandments given to Moses by the Lord. The blood on the mercy seat blocked, you might say, God’s view of the law and man’s failure to keep it.

Jesus is the anti-type of the mercy seat sprinkled with blood, the fulfillment of what was depicted by it. By His blood, He turns aside divine wrath. It seems sad to us that the Father, even metaphorically, hides His face from the Son as Jesus bears the sin of man, bleeds, and dies. Yet it is in this turning away that we are spared the righteous wrath that is the just response to our rejection of truth. To believe now that we are “objects of wrath” is to deny the efficacy of the Cross. The only ones upon whom the wrath of God falls are those who cannot believe or refuse to believe that what Jesus did is enough. We may suffer the consequences of bad actions just because decisions and actions have consequences – even the action of no action. But we can be assured this is not God’s wrath upon us, for our Advocate has covered justice with mercy.

Beware of Insidious Increments

Lead bullet bravo sierra

Lead bullet truth -- from the CDC, no less

One reason I am linking to the two articles above is to demonstrate the desire in some circles to create a panic. Scared people, as the left has told us for the last seven years, are easier to control. Never mind that they were talking about real events, the terror attacks of 9/11, versus stuff the Democrats want us to fear, e.g., the terrorist myth of global warming or climate change or Algore Farted or whatever they're calling it now.

The first article is designed to get questions stirred up about using traditional lead projectiles in hunting ammunition. Waterfowl hunters are already banned from using lead shot and have to use steel -- which frankly sucks -- or some other expensive non-toxic alternative like bismuth. I suppose I can believe that lots of lead shot over heavily hunted waters could increase lead levels in ducks, geese and other wetland inhabitants. I have a lot more trouble believing that the amount of lead in the wound channel of a deer is going to result in increased lead levels in consumers of venison.

The second article confirms what I suspected: the first article is horse pucks.

Let's think about what you can expect for at least the next couple of years from those who just can’t stand the thought of the Second Amendment. Democrats have learned the hard way that running on gun control is a losing proposition, so they campaign by saying they do not want to take guns away from hunters. This sounds all right until you think about it. From whom do they want to take guns? It’s not from criminals because criminals don’t buy guns down at Bass Pro, or even at gun shows. Criminals buy guns from other criminals. Criminals steal guns. Criminals get guns even though it is illegal for them to possess firearms.

See, here is the problem. The Second Amendment does not give me any rights. It confirms a right possessed by every human born on the planet. A free man or woman has the right own weapons to defend himself or herself. I’m going to say something a little controversial, but it is what I believe. I have been in law enforcement, and I respect law enforcement officers in general. They do a tough job and do it well the vast majority of the time. Nevertheless, agents of the government should be just a little bit afraid to kick in an honest man’s door. Government, by its nature, is hostile to freedom. Governments are a necessary evil but still an evil. It is good for a government to fear its citizens.

Leave me alone, let me do my work and raise my family. I will pay my taxes and defend my family and my land if it comes to that. The state exists to provide sufficient security for me to live peaceably. From my point of view, that is the only reason it exists.

The conflict over weaponry comes because, as far as the collectivists in this country are concerned, I exist only to support the state. I should do, not what is in my own interests, but what most benefits the world as a whole. If I am reluctant to lower my standard of living to benefit some inbred, ganga-smoking jackass in a mudhat in Lower Bangagong then it is up to the government to force me to comply “for the greater good”. As some point this compulsion gets a little sticky with an armed citizenry.

Therefore, for the greater good, the private citizen’s access to weaponry needs to be limited, so says the collectivist. To translate what Obama and his ilk believe, modern weapons should be limited to agents of the government. You peons can keep your flintlocks, your fowling pieces, and your bows and arrows. You can hunt with those until we have complete control and you aren’t allowed out of your yard without our permission.

The collectivists plan to forge my chains by increments – one link at a time. They have discovered that threatening guns stirs up the masses and causes a loss of power. So they will try first to restrict ammunition. I would not be surprised to see attempts to add onerous taxes to firearms and ammunition, similar to the “sin” tax on liquor and cigarettes. It will, of course, be a public health issue. It might even be under the guise of providing universal health coverage, since we all know firearms are a major contributor to the rise of healthcare costs. Don’t worry. If you haven’t seen it already, there will be a study to prove this point touted by the MSM very soon.

As illustrated at the top, another point of attack in making ammunition prohibitively expensive could be the “dangers” of lead bullets. Lead is cheap and plentiful. It is malleable and easy to cast into precise, repeatable shapes and weights. For centuries, it has been the very effective projectile of choice for firearms. Banning lead bullets for hunting would seem minor enough, since most hunters fire only a few rounds in the course of the season. But what about practice? Won’t there be “toxic” deposits of lead at shooting ranges? As with all government regulations, the potential for an avalanche is always present. At best, with the introduction of new laws, manufacturers and shooters will find themselves facing higher costs, more restrictions and more twists and turns than a bucketful of snakes, or a dump truck full of lawyers.

We have to be ready to squash these attempts at the outset. There is no reason for further regulation or taxation of weapons and ammunition. Join the NRA and any other group supporting the Second Amendment. Get the names and numbers of your Congressmen and Senators, especially if they are Democrats. It is already time to start letting them know how vehemently you oppose any attempts to increase taxes on sporting goods, ammunition, and weapons, or to restrict the right to keep and bear arms.

Keep an eye on your state fish and game department. Missouri has both a Conservation Department, which handles wildlife regulations, and a Department of Natural Resources which is more in control of ground water, waste disposal and such. New regulations curtailing the use of lead bullets could arise from either of these agencies. I’m sure there are similar agencies under different names in all the other states. This may well be the first line of attack by collectivists of the watermelon* variety.



*Watermelon – for those who might not know, refers to those who are environmentalist green on the outside and communist red on the inside.