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The SEASON of Generation-Choicemaker JOEL 3:14 KJV

In an effort to diminish the multiple and persistent


dangers and abuses which have characterized the affairs


of man in his every Age, and to assist in the requisite


search for human identity, it is essential to perceive


and specify that distinction which naturally and most


uniquely defines the human being. Because definitions


rule in the minds, behaviors, and institutions of men,


we can be confident that delineating and communicating


that quality will assist the process of resolution and


the courageous ascension to which man is called. As


Americans of the 21st Century, we are obliged and privi-


leged to join our forebears and participate in this


continuing proclamation.




THE SEASON OF GENERATION-CHOICEMAKER Joel 3:14 KJV


by JAMES FLETCHER BAXTER (c) 2002




Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe. The


balance is a vast void of human ignorance. Human reason


cannot fully function in such a void, thus, the intellect


can rise no higher than the criteria by which it perceives


and measures values.




Humanism makes man his own standard of measure, however,


as with all measuring systems, a standard must be greater


than the value measured. Based on preponderant ignorance


and an egocentric carnal nature, humanism demotes reason


to the simpleton task of excuse-making in behalf of the


rule of appetites, desires, feelings, emotions, and


glands.




Because man cannot invent criteria greater than himself,


the humanist lacks a predictive capability. Without


transcendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options


with foresight for progression and survival. Lacking


instinct and foresight, man is blind to potential


consequence and is unwittingly committed to mediocrity,


averages, and regression - and worse. Humanism is an


unworthy worship.




The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with a


functional faith while not-so-patiently awaiting the


foot-dragging growth of human knowledge and behavior.


Faith, initiated by the Creator and revealed and


validated in His Word, the Bible, brings a transcendent


standard to man the choice-maker. Other philosophies


and religions are man-made, humanism, and thereby lack


what only the Bible has: 1. Transcendent Criteria and


2. Fulfilled Prophetic Validation. The vision of faith


in God and His Word is survival equipment for today and


the future. Selah


* * *




Man is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by nature


and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of Criteria.


Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive characteristic


is, and of Right ought to be, the natural foundation of


his environments, institutions, and respectful relations


to his fellow-man. Thus, he is oriented to a Freedom


whose roots are in the Order of the universe.




* * *




At the sub-atomic level of the physical universe quantum


physics indicates a multifarious gap or division in the


causal chain; particles to which position cannot be


assigned at all times, systems that pass from one energy


state to another without manifestation in intermediate


states, entities without mass, fields whose substance is


as insubstantial as "a probability."




Only statistical conglomerates pay tribute to


deterministic forces. Singularities do not and are


therefore random, unpredictable, mutant, and in this


sense, uncaused. The finest contribution inanimate


reality is capable of making toward choice, without its


own selective agencies, is this continuing manifestation


of opportunity as the pre-condition to choice it defers


to the natural action of living forms.




* * *




Biological science affirms that each level of life,


single-cell to man himself, possesses attributes of


sensitivity, discrimination, and selectivity, and in


the exclusive and unique nature of each diversified life


form.




The survival and progression of life forms has all too


often been totally dependent upon the ever-present


mutative potential and undeterminative appearance of one


unique individual organism within the whole spectrum of


a given species. Only the uniquely equipped individual


organism is, like The Golden Wedge of Ophir, capable of


traversing the causal gap to survival and progression.


Mere reproductive determinacy would have rendered life


forms incapable of such potential. Only a moving


universe of opportunity plus choice enables the present


reality.


* * *





The human being possesses a unique, highly developed,


and sensitive perception of diversity. Thus aware, man is


endowed with a natural capability for enacting internal


mental and external physical selectivity. Quantitative


and qualitative choice-making thus lends itself as the


superior basis of an active intelligence.




Man is earth's Choicemaker. His title describes his


definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall that his


other features are but vehicles of experience intent on


the development of perceptive awareness and the


following acts of decision. Note that the products of


man cannot define him for they are the fruit of the


discerning choice-making process and include the


cognition of self, the utility of experience, the


development of value-measuring systems and language,


and the acculturation of civilization.




The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,


customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of his


perceptive and selective powers. His articles,


constructs, and commodities, however marvelous to


behold, deserve neither awe nor idolatry, for man, not


his contrivance, is earth's own highest expression of


the creative process.




Man is earth's Choicemaker. The sublime and significant


act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon


which man levers and redirects the forces of cause and


effect to an elected level of quality and diversity.


Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental


opportunity, freedom, and bestows earth's title, The


Choicemaker, on his singular and plural brow.




* * *




Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication


by man from his natural role as earth's Choicemaker,


inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of


singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based


system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness


of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the


selective creative process, they are self-relegated to


a passive and circular regression.






Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his


survival, for it would render him impotent and obsolete


by denying the tools of diversity, individuality,


perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress.


Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts are


contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's


indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.






Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just


begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator,


The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever


learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.


The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates


the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and


delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect


cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the


criteria by which it perceives and measures values.




Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria


self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to


decision-making for survival and progression. He is


left, instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive


hindsight, including human institutions characterized by


averages, mediocrity, and regression.




Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric


predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent


criteria. Evidenced by those who do not perceive


superiority and thus find themselves beset by the


shifting winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings,


desires, appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate -


a mere device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-


justification.




The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for


such instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude.


The appetites of the flesh have no need of standards,


for at the point of contention standards are perceived


as alien, restrictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very


survival of our physical nature itself depends upon a


maintained sovereignty of the mind and of the spirit.




* * *




It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal


and living Creator to traverse the human horizon and


fill the vast void of human ignorance with an


intelligent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded


the prime tool of the intellect - a Transcendent


Standard by which he may measure values in experience,


anticipate results, and make enlightened and visionary


choices.




Only the unique and superior God-man Person can


deservedly displace the ego-person from his predicament


and free the individual to measure values and choose in a


more excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in


the words of the prophet Amos, "...said the Lord, Behold,


I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel."


Y'shua Mashiyach Jesus said, "If I be lifted up I will


draw all men unto myself."


* * *




As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality


and submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and


collectivism, just so long will they be subject and re-


acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating


from others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in


perfect justice, find themselves weighed in the balances


of their own choosing.




That human institution which is structured on the


principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator


with...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the


natural order of the universe. The opponents of such a


system are necessarily engaged in a losing contest with


nature and nature's God. Biblical principles are still


today the foundation under Western Civilization and the


American way of life. To the advent of a new season we


commend the present generation and the "multitudes in


the valley of decision."




Let us proclaim it. Behold!


The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV




CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS


"I should think that if there is one thing that man has


learned about himself it is that he is a creature of


choice." Richard M. Weaver




"Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and


impulses; he can rationalize his behavior. He arranges


his wishes into a scale, he chooses; in short, he acts.


What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he


adjusts his behavior deliberately." Ludwig von Mises




"To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be


presumed that the human being is responsible for his


actions and responsibility cannot be understood apart


from the presumption of freedom of choice."


John Chamberlain




"The advocate of liberty believes that it is


complementary of the orderly laws of cause and effect,


of probability and of chance, of which man is not


completely informed. It is complementary of them because


it rests in part upon the faith that each individual is


endowed by his Creator with the power of individual


choice." Wendell J. Brown




"Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered


universe. They believed themselves to be a part of the


universal order of things. Stated another way, they


believed in God. They believed that every man must find


his own place in a world where a place has been made for


him. They sought independence for their nation but, more


importantly, they sought freedom for individuals to


think and act for themselves. They established a republic


dedicated to one purpose above all others - the


preservation of individual liberty..." Ralph W. Husted




"We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching


that we can choose either to accept or reject the God


who gave it to us, and it would seem to follow that the


Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be


equally free in our relationships with other men.


Spiritual liberty logically demands conditions of outer


and social freedom for its completion." Edmund A. Opitz




"Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the


worse that has made possible life's progress."


Charles Lindbergh




"Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for


oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the


possibility of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man


is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing."


Thomas Jefferson




THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER


Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son


of man that You visit him." Psalm 8:4


A: "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against


you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing


and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and


your descendants may live." Deuteronomy 30:19




Q: "Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?


Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him?" Psalm


144:3


A: "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose


for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the


gods which your fathers served that were on the other


side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose


land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will


serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15




Q: "What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is


born of a woman, that he could be righteous?" Job 15:14


A: "Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He


teach in the way he chooses." Psalm 25:12




Q: "What is man, that You should magnify him, that You


should set Your heart on him?" Job 7:17


A: "Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his


ways." Proverbs 3:31




Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son


of man that You take care of him?" Hebrews 2:6


A: "I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have


laid before me." Psalm 119:30 Let Your hand become my


help, for I have chosen Your precepts." Psalm 119:173





References:


Genesis 3:3,6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19 Job 5:23


Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12; 61:1 Amos 7:8 Joel 3:14


Ecclesiastes 3:1-8