Icha-peekers: Spring Has Arrived with 70 Degrees, Sun, and Hungry Birds

What is more joyful than finding a lonely Werthers in the back of a drawer? The advent of Spring.

Today the temperature reached 70 degrees and the birds finished their supply of suet. Daffodils are rising from the ground and rose bushes are forming new growth.

I stopped at Dime's Meat Market for another seven pounds of suet. Mrs. I decided she no longer liked grits, so I had grits (corn) to pour over the beef fat. The butcher agreed that suet was the most economical food, lasting far longer than seed, and it attracts the bug-eating specialists in the bird population. Starlings swarm the suet but also role-play humming birds as they stay airborne while trying to get seed from the squirrel-proof feeder. Their weight presses down the bar, but they want the tiny seeds, so they stay in flight while adding variety to their diet.

Suet and seeds are often bought by bird-watchers and frugal gardeners looking for pest control. People overlook other possibilities:

• Peanut butter
• Various grains
• Fruit jellies
• Oranges
• Leftover berries
• Raisins
• Stale bread, rolls, pizza crusts.

We opened up a new area for bird-feeding by lining half the backyard with cardboard boxes from Goodwill and other sources. Leaf bags were scarcer than Arkansas football victories during the autumn, with temperatures unusually high. The sudden transition from a little cold to warm weather again has prompted everyone to bag their leaves in convenient, chubby bags left on the curb.

Our helper and I picked up around 60 bags and covered the cardboard entirely.  This area is a new bird feeder, an ideal location for beetles, bugs, spiders, earthworms, and various creatures of decomposition. This population explodes with spring rains and warmth, just as the birds need plenty of meat for their young broods.

The birds control the pests, but also - the pests control the bird population. A larger and more diverse bug population will attract more birds. As I said to the butcher, "The birds come to the suet, and they invite all their friends. Soon I am buying 40 pound bags of sunflower seeds." He agreed, laughing.

Another reclamation project consisted of pulling the best birch logs from a curb across the street and building a natural fence for the main rose garden. Wood begins to rot when left on soil, providing a good perch for birds and a constant center of bug activity, on and below the log or stump. That is why toads are found around dead logs. That is also why the Jackson Reclamation Project is including toad shelters made of wood. The clumps of dead wood fall off trees during storms and are easily gathered for toads instead of thrown away.

UOJ Negates the Means of Grace - Comment from a Reader

Hello,

We have spoken before, and I was wondering if you would clarify a couple of things for me. So, if I understand UOJ correctly then all men are justified but it doesn't apply to them until they believe. So really there are two justifications. One that all people get and then the one an individual gets when he believes that he is justified. I know they like to call it two sides of the same coin, but that seems silly to me.

So, if all men are justified, why would they need to be baptized? That is my question. Don't we  nullify the means of grace when we preach the world justified? It just seems so ridiculous. Why do I need to be justified again if I am already justified? And aren't they believing in their justification rather than Christ's atoning work? 

I think it goes for the Lord's Supper too. Why would I need it to strengthen my faith if I am justified already?

I have been talking through this in my head for close to two years now. It frustrates me.

On another note, my son and I have been learning Koine Greek. I took your advice and we are starting to read through John one verse at a time using the KJV as our answer key. We aren't doing too bad. 

***

"...must accept by faith this general absolution"
which is nowhere to be found in the Bible, Luther, or the Book of Concord.
"Frayans, Ah want y'all to make a decision for salvation without faith.
Amen? Amen!"

GJ - Copies of The Faith of Jesus: Against the Faithless Lutherans are on the way.

Their talking point is - "there are not two justifications," but why do they always talk about Universal Objective Justification and barely mention their precious Subjective Justification, which is nothing more than Making a Decision for UOJ, as CFW Walther BA, taught.

If we pay attention to the extreme Universalism cited by Robert Preus, quoted by Jack Cascione and Paul McCain, then there is no reason to baptize babies - or adults. Likewise, there is no reason to offer or participate in Holy Communion, a neglect that is often reflected in the - ahem - church architecture of Church Growth LCMS and WELS hives of Enthusiasm.

This extreme language (see below) is parroted by Jay Webber and Jon Buchholz with their code words - completed salvation, completed justification. At the cross, the empty tomb. or the angels speaking to the shepherds, they imagine everyone in the world - without faith - was absolved from all sin and saved. Completed. End of story, as Jon-Boy Buchholz wrote.

Greek is not difficult to learn - professors make it hard by their ponderous way of listing vocabulary and grammar rules to follow.

What you are doing will create a wealth of knowledge that will bear fruit in Biblical knowledge and a decided advantage in all academic tests and assignments.

The Romans considered knowledge of Greek to be basic for a real education.

After 24 Hours - McCain Is Leading for the Last Seven Days in Views. Links Embedded in the Titles - For Mequon Grads

Paul McCain was so obnoxious on the ALPB Online Forum
that they gave him a time-out, then banned him.

From 2012 - Paul McCain Channels His Inner Lucifer... Feb 18, 2016,	120
Dr. Lito Cruz Asked That Bethany Add a PayPal Acco... Jul 5, 2011,	101
Your Boy Mark Jeske Is Happy To Fund This Goddess ... Feb 18, 2016,	72
Part II - Making Disciples: The Error of Modern Ra... Feb 17, 2016,	71
Listen Up, Icha-Peekers - The Full-Color Version o... Feb 14, 2016,	68
From 2008 - President of Bethany Lutheran Seminary... Feb 18, 2016,	68
Have Guenther, Mark Schroeder, and Steinbrenner Re... Feb 13, 2016,	62
New Project - Making Disciples: The Error of Moder... Feb 15, 2016,	62
LCMS Pastor Sent This Comment. Perhaps If the LCMS... Feb 16, 2016,	61
Luther's Gospel Sermon for Invocavit, The First Su... Feb 13, 2016,	54

---

Everyone needs some relief after too much McCain.

Local Lottery Winner. The $3 Edition of The Faith of Jesus: Against the Faithless Lutherans Can Still Be Requested.

Happy Birthday, LI.

The lottery winners are being announced from the Powerball gigantic prize. I do not buy lottery tickets, but that reminded me of a more important treasure.

Finishing The Faith of Jesus: Against the Faithless Lutherans was really a thrill. I was hoping that it would make sense to the laity, since the clergy are almost immune to study. That made it difficult to let go of the project, because justification by faith is countered by all the forces of modernist theology, Pietist dogma, and synodical apostasy. One must know the enemy well to refute false doctrine, so taking the argument back to Rambach is a challenge.

At Yale Divnity the professors mourned the lack of study by clergy, once they graduated. One Old Testament professor said, "If I look at a pastor's library, I can tell which year he graduated. They stop reading at graduation and still have the same books."

Abraham Malherbe took us through the study of a text with "Scripture interpreting Scripture,:" simply using the English text, although we we expected to know Hebrew and Greek. I wonder, as I read the published propaganda of synodical pugilists, if they have ever done that. In fact, after completing Thy Strong Word, I knew they had not. John Brug (Mequon) wrote The Ministry of the Word with one brief mention of the efficacy of the Word. And. Otten. Loved. It.

Nils A. Dahl said about LI,
"What a remarkable baby!"
His wife adored holding Martin -
they lost their firstborn.

Nils Dahl asked the doctoral New Testament class, which I got to take, what we knew for certain about the New Testament. He batted away all the lame answers and said, stuttering and shoving his eyeglasses into his mouth to garble his speech even more, "The text! The text! We have that for certain!" We loved his class, because many signed up, based on his world-wide fame as a conservative scholar, but left after trying to follow his quirky speech patterns. He always emphasized study of the text itself, not the study of the theories about the New Testament. Synodical standard bearers take note: copying past efforts is not faithful, scholarly, or wise.

I really enjoyed hearing from various laity, that they loved The Faith of Jesus and wanted multiple copies - 5, 10, and 15 copies at a time. Clergy are asking too, by the way, because there are some who continue to study and  endure in the face of Thrivent-funded lethargy, confusion, and excess.

The great thing about the orders is this - each person has a group of people selected to read (or ignore) the book. Some people writing have simply popped up to request copies - they are not people I know otherwise.

I am now sending out the full-color edition to donors, but I found that the $3 edition is still available for me to order at the author's price. So, continue to ask for it - bethanylutheranworship@gmail.com

I am not asking people to send money to get the black and white edition. People have already given toward it, so simply ask and a bunch will be sent your way.

The Lottery - Back to the Original Theme
I called this Local Lottery Winner because circumstances beyond my control placed me where I could first learn about Church Growth, UOJ, Luther, and the Book of Concord.

Notre Dame forced me to study the modernist theologians - Barth (woo woo Miss Kirschbaum), Tillich (bleh), Rahner, Kueng, and their predecessors, notably Schleiermacher of Halle University.

Serving in Columbus, Ohio placed me in a nest of WELS vipers who made Hillary Clinton seem honest and gracious in comparison. My academic knowledge of Luther and the Book of Concord was turned into a quest to find what was behind the clergy apostasy and adultery - if it only stopped there. One Catholic woman said, "Priests do not consider it a sin if they are with another man," a prescient statement.

Wayne, is he talking about you?

Hilariously, Wayne Mueller claimed in print that WELS had no Church Programs, but if the synod did, they were Biblical. Only a graduate of WELS GA hazing could manufacture a twisted claim like that.

Megatron, the database I created to handle the quotations for Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, became the storehouse for the WELS/LCMS Church Growth quotations and their refutations in Luther and the Book of Concord. More quotations were added for Thy Strong Word and the total passed 3,000 quotations - with the proper citations. That storehouse of quotations is still a handy weapon today, and I used it to call up the statements of nincompoops yakking about disciples making disciples making disciples...

The Real Treasure
The greatest treasure has been the demand to prove, support, and add weight to justification by faith, the Chief Article of Christianity. The reader known only by his hexadecimal number, 29A, kept saying, "We need more justification by faith quotations."

I often thought, "Isn't that obvious by now?" But it was not, for good reason. That is why I call this a lottery win. I read Luther's entire, large Galatians Commentary to Mrs. Ichabod, out loud, page after page. She loved it, and I thought I knew the book. But for the last few books on justification I read it all over again, especially the key passages.

That book - and John 16:8 - really opened up justification by faith for me, and I could see how this was the great treasure distributed through the Means of Grace. And that concentrates me on sticking to the great works of Lutheran Biblical study and doctrine - Luther's sermons and the Book of Concord. I am shipping off various books from my library because I like to see others enjoy them. And - I would rather read more of fewer than a little of a lot. Northwestern Mutual's survey gives me only 24 years of writing and blogging left, God willing, and I am not going to spend it on minor league theologians.

More Treasure
The best part is seeing how much laity and clergy appreciate Luther and the Confessions, once the introductions have been made again. The soul-murdering magicians of the synods want to misdirect our eyes, so we look at recent, poorly-educated church politicians instead of Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhard, and Hunnius.

If you read Hunnius versus the Huberian UOJ, you will gasp and say, "He has destroyed Walther, Pieper, and Valleskey in one little volume!"

That is one little slice of post-Reformation, post-Concord history. Does anyone study that era now? I hope so, because the genius group that put together the Book of Concord was alive and kicking false doctrine in the but I was only saying late into the 16th century. I believe I can trace how that little book came to be published, but it is a long story. Short version - it was like the lottery.

We are the lottery winners,
through the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace.