Truth Magazine

By Charlie Reese

There is a greater danger that the United States is becoming more like the Soviet Union than there is a possibility that the Soviet Union will become more like the United States.

The latter will not happen. Why it won’t and can’t happen I’ll leave for another column.

But how are we becoming more like the Soviet Union? Well, a woman in Madison, Wis., who declined to accept a lesbian as a roommate, was hauled before the city board, which declares such a private decision a public violation of ordinances forbidding discrimination. As part of her punishment, the lady was required to attend re-education classes conducted by a lesbian organization.

This incident is as significant as it is bizarre. The American tradition, the essence if you will of our free society, is that the government concerns itself with protecting rights by punishing behavior that harms people. Here, however, the government is concerned not merely with behavior but with thinking. The woman must not only cease her behavior, declining to have a lesbian as a roommate, but she must change her thinking about lesbians.

This, of course, is the essence of the communist society and the difference between a common, ordinary dictator and a communist dictator. The ordinary dictator doesn’t care what you think, only what you do if it threatens him. The communist, however, considers what you think a threat and does everything he can, from propagandizing to killing, to control your mind. This tendency to view thoughts as crimes is growing in the U.S., and the danger is not from fundamentalist Christians but from hip liberals in the elite institutions. It is they who increasingly are beginning to view thoughts as unacceptable. They increasingly show a desire to punish people for being what they define as sexist or racist or homophobic even in the absence of any actions that injure anyone.

The poor baseball executive, neither a philosopher nor a professional debater, who expressed his opinion that perhaps blacks did not have the stuff to be executives lost his job, even though no one ever accused the man of doing anyone any wrong. His “crime” was an opinion that differed from the orthodoxy established by the elite.

The American tradition has always been that your thoughts and expressions of those thoughts should be guided only by your conscience and your reason. With four exceptions – libel, slander, incitement to riot, and obscenity — thought and speech are declared off limits to government by our Constitution. There is no requirement in the Bill of Rights that speech or thought be correct or fashionable in order to qualify for protection.

So this is one way we are beginning to resemble the Soviet Union – by viewing any thinking we don’t agree with as dangerous and punishable.

The other foundation of our free society is private property. This too, is becoming less and less a value among the American intelligentsia. Increasingly people are willing to restrict the use or even effectively confiscate private property in the name of so-called greater public needs.

The most obvious example is the restriction of advertising billboards because someone in government thinks they are aesthetically offensive. They may be, but a bedrock of America was that private property rights are a higher value than aesthetics.

The key control mechanism in the Soviet Union is the absence of property rights. With no private ownership of anything, people can never be independent.

We had better be much more concerned about the evolution of our country and the thinking of its elites than we are about the Soviet Union. We can’t control or influence the Soviet Union. We can save ourselves – from ourselves – if we rediscover our American values.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 5, p. 136
March 1, 1990

By Lewis Willis

I suppose you have heard about it by now. Almost every news broadcast of any length at all reported the news. In man’s quest for good health, many heard the best news possible to hear. A medical research panel concluded that those who drink two beers a day are healthier than those who do not drink.

The Chief Executive Officers of every brewery in the country leaped for joy. I suspect they commissioned a delivery to be made to every member of the medical panel who issued the report. Visions of escalating sales raced through their minds. No doubt they wondered how many new breweries would have to be built to accommodate the demands for their products which the population would make. It would probably be hard to imagine the number of congratulatory telephone calls, telegrams and letters which were sent to the Canadian brewery which authorized and financed the panel’s research.

Imagine that! If you drink two beers a day you are healthier than if you drank none at all. I wonder what would happen if you drank four beers a day. Would you be twice as healthy? I am not a researcher, and certainly not a medical researcher, but one of my first questions was how healthy was t e “two beers a day” group before they started drinking? What was the general health condition of those who did not drink? Is it possible that those who thought themselves so much healthier had lost their capacity to evaluate their general condition. I’ve seen a lot of fellows lying in the gutter who were “feeling no pain.” Or, is it possible that the findings of the panel might have been slanted in the direction of the interests of the brewery who paid for the research? Something must have been “fishy” about the research for many medical authorities questioned the validity of the panel’s findings.

It is significant that the conclusion drawn involved the consumption of two beers a day. Almost every state in the Union has legislated that if a person’s blood alcohol content is 10, he is considered to be legally drunk. By Ohio law that means a mandatory three day jail sentence for those who are caught, that is, if the judges have enough guts to enforce the laws. Of course, the jails would be so overflowing that those convicted would have to be housed like cord wood And the guys on the bottom of the stack would commission the American Civil Liberties Union to file suit over their treatment while in the drunk tank.

To reach this blood alcohol content of 10 at which one is legally drunk, a 150-pound person would only have to consume two 12-ounce beers in one hour. Therefore, if this person were to follow the medical panel’s advice of drinking two beers a day and drank his two beers in one hour, if he were stopped by a State Trooper, he could be charged with DWI and sentenced to jail. I wonder how healthy it is to spend three days in jail with a bunch of other drunks?

Can you imagine the mess on our highways if every driver followed the panel’s advice? The state tells us that their research has shown one’s vision, thinking capacity and ability to react to possible danger is noticeably impaired when the blood alcohol content is 10. These folks think they are healthier, but in reality they are legally drunk! Which brings me to my point.

When we have 200 million drunks on the road, you might like to join me when I go shopping for my next car. I’m going to shop at an Army Surplus lot – I want to buy me a Sherman tank! With seat belts, of course. Can you get a tank with radial tires? If all of us teetotalers were driving tanks, the drunks would watch out for us instead of us having to watch out for the drunks. That sounds like a pleasant thought to me. And, considering the number of innocent people killed on our highways in alcohol related accidents, driving a tank would be more healthy. Perhaps we should get an Army Surplus organization to convene a panel to research the effect on the national health if we all drove tanks.

A lot of parties are conducted throughout the country. More and more we hear of those who claim to be Christians participating with the crowd in consuming alcoholic beverages. In all seriousness, brethren, you can get drunk before you know it. Of course, you will just think you are feeling good, but the State says you are drunk! If you get in your car and start driving in that condition, you may injure yourself in an accident. Or, you may injure or kill some innocent person. Or, you may have to spend some time in jail, with all the embarrassment that entails. But, most important of all, you will have sinned against Almighty God! Galatians 5:21 says that “they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” When you decide you can engage in this kind of worldliness when the evidence of the Scriptures and medical facts are arrayed against you, you are deceiving no one but yourself with your social drinking. For each of these little episodes, the social drinker “shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12). I was just thinkin’, we need our best abilities, unimpaired by alcohol in our system, to safely get around in a world filled with social drinkers and other drunks! Let none of us be deceived by such nonsense as that which says we are healthier if we get a little drunk each day.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 5, p. 135
March 1, 1990

By Mike Hughes

Every year after December has come and gone the season most of us dread rears its weary head. The dreaded Tax Season. We as preachers are in a unique situation when it comes to filing of our taxes. There are some tax advantages that will help us with the tax bite if we know enough about them to take full advantage of what the tax law allows. I would like to look at some of these situations that might be of help to you in reducing or eliminating your taxes altogether!

Generally there are two ways that preachers approach their taxes. One way is to be considered as an employee. With this method any expenses you incur would be considered as employee business expenses.

The other method and I believe the most advantageous is to consider yourself a business. The main reason to consider yourself as a business can be seen very quickly if you examine a copy of IRS Schedule C. Any of your expenses you can get on a Schedule C comes directly off of your Adjusted Gross income amount, the amount that your tax is based on prior to taking your Standard or Itemized deduction and your dependence deduction. Let me show you what I mean.

First of all it is very advantageous to have a work agreement with the congregation with which you work. What this agreement does is specify how the salary that the church pays you is broken down for tax deduction purposes. Let me explain what I mean.

We all know that we are allowed to have a “parsonage allowance. ” But do you know what is allowed to be taken on a parsonage allowance? Most preachers know that a parsonage allowance consists of things like Rent or House payments, Utilities. But did you know that furniture costs, the cable TV bill, cleaning supplies for the house, items for lawn care can also be taken as parsonage allowance? On a work agreement you can also declare your auto expenses, insurance and business expenses. The way you do this is to write a form letter declaring the various amounts are allocated for each; then the remainder of your salary is what you base your taxes on. Doing this you keep a copy and the church treasurer files a copy. Every quarter you file a quarterly report giving the amounts you spend on each item. I would be happy to send you a copy of these agreements for a SAE.

If you don’t have a work agreement set up, don’t despair you can still save money on last year’s taxes using Schedule C. If you enter your Gross Salary on line la called Gross receipts or sales. Then drop down to the Part II section called Deductions and figure up the amounts of any of the items you might have that would come under any of these categories. For example the subscription price you pay for this magazine would be one item that would go under line 13 dues and publications.

There are other advantages we have not written about that would help reduce the tax bite. Others I can think of are filing for exemption to Social Security. Taking depreciation on or writing off the full price of the new computer you might have purchased last year.

One final caution. Not a Tax Preparers are fully knowledgeable of preacher’s tax returns. I have heard a lot of stories where a preacher didn’t get to take all the deductions he was allowed to take. because of lack of knowledge about them.

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 4, p. 114
February 15, 1990

By Bobby L. Graham

The relationship of marriage is approved by God and controlled by him. Humans do not have the right to put asunder (separate) what God has joined (Matt. 19:6). The relationship of marriage is no more open to human change than is the worship of the church or the terms of admission into the church. Men are not permitted to alter God’s system in any respect (1 Cor. 4:6).

Satan has been successful, nevertheless, in enlisting into his army many who would attack the clear teaching of Scripture regarding marriage. Even brethren have submitted to his rule and have cooperated with him in his diabolical efforts. The contriving of marriage theories that are clearly false has been one of their chief contributions.

Jesus plainly expressed his will concerning marriage, divorce, and re-marriage in passages like Matthew 19:9: “And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.” Every one of these false theories considered below makes Jesus’ teaching void.

The Divorced Fornicator

According to some the divorced fornicator is free to marry in God’s sight. They claim that he is free because he is no longer bound to his mate in marriage. It is true that he is no more bound to his mate. If he were still bound, then the innocent partner would also be bound because the binding involves both of them, as is seen in Romans 7:1-3.

The absence of a bond to his former partner, however, is not the full picture. God has never given the fornicator the right to marry again. Where is the passage giving the right of re-marriage to the guilty party? It is not found in the New Testament. In the absence of such a passage authorizing his second marriage, he is not authorized to marry. Marriage is like all other aspects of the divine will in that God has fully set forth his will. Because the put away fornicator is never granted the right of re-marriage, he acts without divine authority when he marries again. He is just like the priest from another tribe, the priest offering strange fire, Cain offering another kind of sacrifice, the worshiper using his mechanical instrument under the new covenant, and the Mormon using water in the Lord’s supper. They all act without God’s authority (Heb. 7:14; 1 Cor. 4:6). When God says nothing to permit the divorced fornicator to marry, he acts apart from God’s law and classes himself as a lawless individual (Matt. 7:23).

If this theory were true, the fornicator could make his partner so miserable that divorce would take place. In this situation, he would have the right to remarry again. In other words, he could benefit from his own sin, or do evil that good might result, though the apostle Paul classified such a principle as dishonorable in Romans 3:8.

Adultery: An Isolated Act

Closely related to the previous theory is this one that views adultery as a one-time action committed in the consummation of a second marriage, with all succeeding acts sanctioned by God because they are part of the new marriage, which God accepts. Here again, if this theory be true, it encourages a low view of marriage for it makes it possible for one partner to commit adultery for an evil purpose and benefit therefrom. It would also mean that the innocent party is not married to the guilty one any longer. Would this not be the case if the act of adultery terminated the first marriage? If the guilty came back to his mate for later cohabitation, while the innocent did not know of the act of adultery, the innocent party would ignorantly commit adultery, fornication. The result of the theory is just as foolish as the theory itself is!

It is important to examine this idea of adultery as a onetime act. Will it bear the scrutiny of close examination and testing with the Word of God? If the theory be correct, then why does Romans 7:3 call the woman an adulteress after her marrying another man? If the first act of cohabitation were the only act of adultery, then the verse incorrectly labels her an adulteress. Why was the woman in 1 Corinthians 5 called the wife of the father, even after the first act of cohabitation, if that act broke the bond of marriage to her husband, freeing her to marry again? Why did John the baptizer call the woman in Mark 6:17,18 the wife of Philip after her marriage to her brother-in-law if that first act of cohabitation terminated her marriage? There is something wrong with the theory that makes these clear passages inexplicable!

While many contend that one cannot “live in adultery,” the-Bible says otherwise. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul said the Corinthians lived in adultery before becoming Christians by using the Greek imperfect tense, which signifies continued action in the past. In Matthew 19:9 Jesus said one could live in adultery as he employed the Greek present tense, which signifies continued action. In Colossians 3:5-7 Paul indicated it is possible for people to live in fornication, which includes adultery. It is true that adultery is only one species of fornication, but the usage of Paul did not distinguish between the various kinds of fornication. He clearly referred to fornication in general, including adultery. After all, what is so special about adultery that it would be only a one-time act while other forms of fornication are continuous conditions?

The Unbeliever’s Status

Much ado has been made over the special status of one not a Christian. Efforts have been made to show him unamenable to God’s law on marriage. Some have contended that he is subject only to civil law. The absurdity of these ideas is seen in Jesus’ teaching on marriage when he returned to God’s original marriage law (Matt. 19). Here he identified God’s will relative to marriage as being superior to all later law, both civil law and kingdom law, for it preceded both of them. He did not indicate that God’s law is otherwise for unbelievers.

If Jesus’ statement does not apply to unbelievers, then their practices of polygamy, concubinage, and homosexual marriage are not wrong. If baptism sanctifies their present relationships, then their conversion to Christ does not require them to terminate those relationships. If not, why not? On the other hand, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 conclusively shows that unbelievers are subject to law besides civil law and are guilty of sin besides the sin of unbelief. Those Corinthians were guilty of homosexuality, covetousness, and reviling, none of which was condemned or controlled under Roman or Greek law.

What is so magical about baptism that it can transform a sinful act/relationship into a righteous one? The act that was sinful before baptism continues to be such after conversion. Repentance requires a cessation of sinful practices. Has sexual cohabitation which is continued after conversion been repented of? Does not its continuance prove a lack of repentance? If baptism has such power, what would remove its power to make polygamy and homosexuality right?

The law of Christ in the New Testament is directed to all people, brings blessings and punishment to all people, and will be the basis of judgment for all. Why then would all not be subject to it?

Guardian of Truth XXXIV: 5, pp. 131-132
March 1, 1990