Massive Rose Blooming - Thanks to the Rain, Our Helper, and Mrs. Ichabod's Support

Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

9 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.

The prophet Isaiah, inspired by the Holy Spirit, used our knowledge of rain and snow to describe the work of the Word of God. The Word:

1. Never returns to God void.
2. Always accomplishes His will, and 
3. Prospers God's purpose.

There is only one possible conclusion - the Holy Spirit is always united with the Word. In other words, God never works without the Word and always accomplishes His will through the Word.

Contrary to Calvin, the father of Christian rationalism, the Gospel has a powerful effect at all times. The heir to Zwingli's rationalism imagined that the Holy Spirit was sovereign in choosing not to work at times. That is why Calvinists use the term  sovereign, to emphasize this fickle nature. The king of a country may choose to go to war or not, so Calvin confused the nature of earthly traditions with God's Word and will.

Calvin's separation of Word and Spirit explains why so many quasi-Lutherans do not trust the Word. Such a wrong-headed dogma influences people to supply what God does not promise in His Scriptures. Perhaps they need to make the Word relevant to the times. Or, they may need to explain the Word of God so that it makes sense to human reason.

Reasonable explanations do not apply to the mysteries revealed by the Spirit in the Word. The Holy Trinity is revealed, not explained. The Two Natures in Christ are taught by the Word, not made reasonable by man. Holy Communion is expounded by the Word, and not subject to human deductions and logic.

That does not mean leaving our brains at home or in the church narthex, but using God's gifts to understand the Word of God in its plain, clear meaning. Every time I hear a dogma contrary to Scripture, the rationale comes from a long history of some people drilling their followers on the clear meaning NOT being what they think it is.

The Rose Gardens in Bloom
Last year we began the first rose garden and expanded it from 8 to 16 roses. The ingredients were:

• Jackson Mulch turning the lawn into compost.
• Uncle Jim's Worm Farm's red wigglers helping the effort.
• No insecticides, no herbicides, and no fungicides. The only spraying was water.

We are experiencing heavy rains this week. The formerly empty rain barrels are now full. The KnockOut roses have at least 400 blooms on them. Last year's hybrid tea roses are blooming and the new roses are budding.

The mulch layer is a massive damp blanket of organic matter, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, and earthworms. The rain fertilizes the roses with nitrogen while giving all the soil creatures a boost. Their increased population traps more nutrition in the top layer of soil and feeds it to the roots.

Our helper kept the projects moving along by showing up for mulching and digging. Mrs. Ichabod cheered the design and the number of roses. When I was done ordering and an email offered rose for $5 each, she said, "Order them now!" And I did.

Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Gardener were delighted with the prospect of having so many roses to enjoy.

I admit to working at this for the last year, but the vast majority of labor has been done by God's creatures, fashioned by the Creating Word - the Son of God - at the very beginning. "Nothing that was made was made apart from Him." John 1

Jesus is the example of always dealing with people, converting them through the spoken Word.

But He was not successful, some say, because so many hated Him and decided to kill Him. That was also effective, as many ministers have noticed in their own congregations. As soon as the Gospel takes root, as Luther observed. Satanic opposition rises up from within the congregation to silence the Word.

Some cleverly avoid this by not teaching the Word, and their Calvinist mentors at Fuller Seminary teach them how.

Giant Hogweed - A Lesson about Importing False Doctrine

Even touching this plant can make you sorry for a long, long time.
Note the Queen Ann's Lace profile -
Queen Ann's Lace is called wild carrot, but those wild carrots are poison.

Wikipedia says:

Giant hogweed was among many foreign plants introduced to Britain in the 19th century, mainly for ornamental reasons. It is now widespread throughout the British Isles, especially along riverbanks. By forming dense stands, they can displace native plants and reduce wildlife interests.^[8] It has also spread in the northeastern and northwestern United States and southern Canada. It is equally a pernicious invasive species in Germany, France and Belgium, overtaking the local species.^[8] It was introduced in France in the 19th century by botanists, where it is much appreciated by beekeepers.

A Facebook friend posted a video about Giant Hogweed in Michigan, and I wondered a bit about a hoax, so I looked it up on various sites.

The plant looks like carrots gone to seed, parsley, and Queen Ann's Lace, all part of my gardening efforts. For good reason - Giant Hogweed belongs to the same family and has that umbrella shaped seedheads.

My first thought is - If a plant can grow 10 feet without effort, be very wary of it, because that is not a typical plant and it is unlikely a wholesome plant.

Mr. Gardener and I laugh about the government suggesting kudzu vine and the Chinese multiflora rose as good plants for farmers to plant and encourage. Both are noxious plants and illegal to grow now. In Arkansas, he says, there are still areas owned by kudzu, smothered by the vine.

They found a disease that attacks the multiflora rose, so that plant is no longer considered a major threat to life, health, wealth, and peace of mind. Neither kudzu nor multiflora rose could be weeded out - which tells us something right there.

Plants and Sound Doctrine
Plants from the same family have similar growing habits, similar flowers and seeds, but they often vary in their usefulness.

The nightshades include tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, egg plant, woody nightshade, deadly nightshade, and garden huckleberry. The last item produces black berries that can be cooked and made into pies. Deadly nightshade is the basis for belladonna, still a useful medicine, but the berries are toxic.

The umbellifers include:
The Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae), commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, are a family of mostly aromatic plants with hollow stems. The family, which is named after the type genus Apium, is large, with more than 3,700 species spread across 434 genera; it is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants.^[1] Included in this family are the well-known plants: angelica, anise, arracacha, asafoetida, caraway, carrot, celery, Centella asiatica, chervil, cicely,coriander (cilantro), culantro, cumin, dill, fennel, hemlock, lovage, Queen Anne's lace, parsley, parsnip, cow parsnip,sea holly, giant hogweed and the now extinct silphium.

Since Giant Hogweed comes from a distinguished family, it must be good. I am sure that was the argument, and "Look, how the bees love it." And - "Easy to grow!"

Touch this plant and get blistered and scarred.
It is extremely toxic.

We all have our toxic plant stories, including poison ivy. I once tried to pull it out of the ground with my bare hands. I really suffered for that. Mr. Gardener and his wife both have their own poison ivy stories. Our cousin almost died from eating a mushroom that she was hyper-allergic too, though it did not affect her family.

Dealing with plants means discerning the good from the bad. I do not have the knowledge to find the right mushrooms in the wild so I do not even try.

Sound Doctrine Is Healthy Doctrine - False Doctrine Is Cancer

Distinguishing sound doctrine (literally healthy teaching) from false doctrine (described as a cancer) is a mandate for all Christian believers, especially those who would teach the Faith.

The arguments of false teachers are just as compelling as the government's promotion of kudzu vine -

1. Kudzu grows quickly on its own.
2. The roots hold the soil.
3. Cattle can eat it - free food.

Church Growth came from Robert Schuller and the nearby Fuller Seminary, both near Disneyland in California. Schuller was a Dutch Calvinist, a Protestant. Look at how successful he was, and look at how Fuller became the largest pan-demon seminary in America.

Superficially, Church Growth is not opposed to the Christian Faith. The leaders promoted it as good for all denominations (a bad sign). And church executives from all denominations - even the Church of Rome - came to be trained there.

The leaders of the LCMS, WELS, and ELS have been trained at Fuller, Willow Creek, and similar re-education centers, like Trinity Divinity in Deerfield. Lutheran laity have paid the tuition for them. Thrivent has also backed this 100%  - another bad sign.

No single aspect of Church Growth can be refuted.

• Is it wrong to phone a lot of people for evangelism? 
• Is it wrong to clean the church and make it attractive? (Rare, but not wrong) 
• Do we have to use page 5 and 15 for the worship service?
• Do all the hymns have to be from Lutherans?
• Cannot our members sing solos and glorify God?
• Must we stick to the KJV, which did not come from Lutherans? (Shading the truth a bit)

Church Growth dogma and methods can be promoted successfully when it is carefully presented to the innocent, hiding the real agenda, which works more by displacement than outright antagonism.

Giant Hogweed does not kill other plants - it simply overwhelms them with its enormous leaves and prodigal seed production. Dill and Queen Ann's Lace can easily be spread by crushing the seedheads and sowing the seed. I simply took home mature Queen Ann's Lace and left it on the ground.  But neither plant takes over the way Giant Hogweed does.

They brag about going there and deny it -
Bivens and Valleskey.

Kudzu enriches the soil in many ways, but it also smothers homes, cars, and utility poles.

Church Growth has spread its culture of doctrinal indifference to every single church body in America. From doctrinal indifference comes all the bad fruit of any fast-growing weedlike false teaching.

Frau Mueller, Wayne's cross-dressing son,
Larry Olson, perhaps the worst teacher at Martin Luther College,
and Jeff Gunn, DP Buchholz' favorite pastor,
all are working together to smother and destroy the Means of grace.

I first heard it in Columbus, Ohio from the adulterous clergy in WELS -

• Doctrinal discernment is "Christian bashing."
• Anyone against Church Growth is "lazy."
• "You are not one of us." (Good)
• "We have been talking to your members and..."

 WELS funded a separate campus of the same congregation,
 to present Craig Groeschel sermons verbatim.
They even borrowed the Groeschel graphics and slogans.

Like WELS, Missouri, and the ELS, they lost by winning. The Columbus WELS congregations are collapsing faster than a Hillary alibi. Those clergy (like Jay Webber and Jon Buchholz) who did nothing against Church Growth are loudly proclaiming forgiveness without faith as the true Gospel - denying UOJ is the foundation for Church Growth, even though the adulterous Karl Barth and the heinous David Valleskey taught UOJ with glee.

Don Patterson denied his Chruch and Change credentials,
went to their "last" conference,
took staff to Exponential,
and became the District President.