
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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If We Don’t Do Anything
October 26, 2026 Leave a comment
Your country has a long history of battling the sea. Around 26 percent of your land is at or below sea level. Authorities who oversee flood control and water quality go back and forth on water management. A folktale embodies your country’s relationship with water.
A young boy, not the water board, acts to avert a catastrophic flood in his town. The boy sees a leak in the dike while returning home. He plugs the leak with his finger and stays there through the cold night until daybreak when villagers notice him.
The quick-witted Dutch boy demonstrated true activism with resourcefulness and determination. The individual agency of the boy embodied self-sacrifice and bravery. He knew what was at stake for his community if he didn’t do anything.
Water Management
The opening of the creation account in Genesis (Genesis 1: 1-2) presents a primordial scene. The earth, formless and empty (tohu wabohu), was completely covered by a deep (tehom) sea. The sea, here and elsewhere in scripture, symbolizes non-order, chaos, danger, and the unknown and uncontrollable aspects of nature.
When God answers Job, he speaks of setting boundaries for the ocean, commanding it to stop at specific limits. The sea, chaotic and powerful and going where it will, is brought under control. The primeval waters are restrained. Non-order is ordered.
Job 38: 8-11
“Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?
The psalm about creation, Psalm 104, also speaks of God ordering the watery chaos in vs.5-9:
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
Deliver Us from Evil
The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.
When mankind’s disorder, chaos, and evil covered the earth (Genesis 6), God, faithful to his creation and knowing what was at stake if he didn’t do anything, removed the threat of destructive evil by releasing the primeval waters of chaos (Genesis 7).
“The waters of the flood are understood as the primeval waters of chaos or the waters of the abyss (Gen. 1:2; 7:11), which God in creation had restrained and held at bay, but had not abolished (Gen. 1: 6-7). They symbolize the power of nothingness to undo creation, a destructive potential which remains to threaten the created universe with reversion to chaos.”[1]
The punishment fits the crime. Order is restored through a faithful remnant.
Destroying the “destroyers of earth”
The judgement of the Genesis flood account is alluded to in the Revelation of John (Rev. 11):
The twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, singing, . . .
The nations raged,
but your wrath has come,
and the time for judging the dead,
for rewarding your servants, the prophets
and saints and all who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
At the end of the Revelation of John (Rev. 21) there is talk of a new heaven and a new earth and . . .
“The waters of the primeval abyss, that represent the source of destructive evil, the possibility of the reversion of creation to chaos, are finally no more.”[2]
The sea symbolizes disorder that God controls and brings order to, reinforcing His authority over creation.
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Staying Above Water
The Little Dutch Boy Who Saved Holland “effectively depicts the Dutch spirit of resilience and ingenuity, emphasizing their continuous fight and victory over the unyielding sea. The narrative of the little Dutch boy stands as a profound metaphor, symbolizing the nation’s persistent struggle with water and their unwavering efforts to safeguard their land and people.
It also highlights their innovative water management systems, a testament to Dutch resourcefulness and determination.”
Behind the 1965 folktale by American writer Mary Mapes Dodge is the reality of the Netherland’s “complex network of dykes and flood barriers, demonstrating the country’s proactive water management strategies . . . [the Dutch are] globally recognized for their pioneering flood control techniques, embodying the same spirit as the little Dutch boy who protected his homeland from imminent catastrophe.”
The folktale goes beyond the Dutch relationship with water and the need for water management. It represents a national identity of resilience in the face of adversity and communal responsibility. It is everyone’s legal duty to maintain the edge of the land touching the water.
The folktale embraces moral wisdom: bringing order to non-order and averting a potentially chaotic and deadly situation. The Dutch boy’s “finger in the dike” reminds us that small actions can prevent great disasters.
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Holding Back or Holding Back?
I remember a bumper sticker from my church days: “Some people are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.”
The gospel, as I was repeatedly reminded growing up in Bible churches with countless altar calls, came down to accepting the formulaic four spiritual laws by which one could go to heaven when you died. The mission henceforth was to evangelize with the four spiritual laws and get people to heaven and rapture ready. But the Bible’s gospel, the Bible’s good news, is first and foremost this: Jesus is Lord.
That confession is both personal and political. There is no salvation if that gospel is not accepted. There is no “Thy will be done in earth, as it is heaven” if that gospel is not accepted. Escaping to heaven doesn’t accomplish the Lord’s prayer.
Where am I going with all this?
Could it be that an estimated 40 million Christians typically sit out elections?
Could it be that you, Christian, for whatever reason, do not participate in elections?
When did you decide to let foreigners, fraudsters, and fanatic Islamists and socialists take over your country, your state, your community, your neighborhood, your schools, and your tax dollars?
When did you decide that justice meant letting violent felons back on the street to kill and rape again?
When did you decide that your hard-earned tax dollars would be spent to fund all manner of evil?
When did you decide that election integrity was a threat to “Democracy?”
When did you decide that speaking up and even joking was “hate speech?”
When did you decide that it was OK for the DSA to overthrow our Constitutional system?
When did you decide to let America die?
When did you decide to define social justice in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion, inclusion, and inclusion without regard to what that would mean?
When did you decide that the migrant/Antifa-style riots in France and Italy need to come to the U.S.?
When did you decide to hold back from holding back chaos and the destructive forces of evil?
When did you decide that your Christianity was too good for creation which, as scripture reveals, God wants to deliver from evil?
Go Vote on or before Tuesday Nov. 3rd and put a stop to the chaotic and destructive flood waters called the Democrat Party! What If We Don’t Do Anything!
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[1] Bauckham, Richard. (1993/2018). The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge University Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819858. PP 53
[2] IBID, PP53
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Filed under 2026 Current Events, 2026 Election, Christianity, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, The book of Job Tagged with Bible, Christianity, faith, Genesis, God, Voting, Elections, scripture, Christianity, Evangelicals, Politics