Friday, February 13, 2015

Snow Is Pretty Cool - But Still Warm

Spinach hums along beneath the snow,
true to its Creator.


Most of our friends are stranded by heavy snowfall, from Moline to Maine. That can be pleasant peaceful, but also annoying and difficult at some point. We were isolated by the 1978 blizzard in Sturgis - southern Michigan. That storm swept from the Great Lakes to New England. We were next to a state highway that was not plowed for one week, leaving the area in eerie quiet.

How high was the snow? When I raised the garage door, the snow was above my head. The amount was staggering, yet beautiful in its blue-white crystalline drifts.

Snow owes its blanket effect to the interlocking crystals. Nothing gets very cold under a thick layer of snow. Many creatures have lively winters beneath it. Like the effect of leaves locking together, the snow crystals trap air and insulate the ground from the drying and freezing effect of storms above.

Gardeners and farmers would rather have heavy snowfalls than drying, freezing winds without snow. When the snow melts all the plants get a special boost and the ground water increases.

The Scriptures promise (and warn us) that God's Word is just like rain and snow. The effect is inevitable. On the positive side, the effect of God's Word is never void, always accomplishes His purpose, and prospers His will.

But there is another side to this -  a warning. Only God's Word can do this - not man's word. In the battle between Satan's Kingdom and God's, God will win.

Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

For now, God is using false teachers to punish the denominations that tolerate them. We all know the Lutherans (so-called conservatives, putative confessionals, faux-orthodox) are in bed with ELCA. God knows too. He will reward those who prosper the work of Satan, as all these do. Everyone has been warned.
Augustine said there are two cities, the City of Man is built upon the love of Self. The City of God is built upon the love of God.
These false teachers even brag about their promotion of self-love, because it is all they really think about - themselves. Listen to Mark Jeske for five minutes--keeping a puke pan nearby--and see if you agree.