How to love your son without walking in the path of Marlene Aguilar -Pollard

In one of her recent interviews, she was crying heavily as she was saying this:

"I'm still traumatized. I have not slept. I have not eaten. My heart breaks beyond words. My son is fighting for his life, and if he dies I accept that with all humility. But I want everyone to know that no matter what my son did I love him with all my heart and soul."

She was also crying heavily infront of a TV camera two months ago as she pleads her fugitive son to surrender himself to the authorities and face the charges of murder.

Then in December, she reports to the authorities that his son is overseas.

Yet last Monday, a team of NBI agents finally arrested Jason Ivler after an exchange of bullets in the basement of her mother's house. In another interview, she insists that she was unaware of the fugitive's presence inside because "the house is too big". Some lies stink so much that you don't have to be a trial court judge to sort out falsehood from truth.

It is by no means exhaustive but I have a few items here I want to share on how to love to your son without walking in the path of Marlene Aguilar-Pollard.

1. You have to teach your son the concept of retribution. Teach him that justice demands that the offender must pay for the evil he has done.He cannot steal his younger brother's marbles and get away with it. He cannot destroy his sister's doll without getting spanked. "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him" (Proverbs 13:24). Tell him that a person who disobeys traffic rules must be fined. Make it clear that Antonio Margarito deserves the suspension sanctioned on him for using illegal hand wraps. Murder somebody else's son and be ready for Reclusión perpetua.

2. Teach your son to respect civil authorities.. They may not stand behind pulpits but in a sense, they are ministers-- ministers of God in executing his wrath against evil. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 13:4, "... He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer ." So respect them. Teach your son to submit themselves to the authorities if a warrant of arrest is issued against him. When they come to arrest you, do not engage an exchange of bullets.Teach your son that if he rebels against civil authorities, he is rebelling against what God has instituted (Romans 13:2).

3. Teach your son that the guilty cannot evade justice for all eternity. You can hide in the basement, in thick forests or even in Antartica until you turn 70. But God will not let the guilty go unpunished. Evil doers will be punished with everlasting destruction in what is commonly known as hell (2 Thess.1:8-9). Mothers who are liars and sons who are murderers shall surely go there unless they repent and embrace the gospel.
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Do you think that the people of Haiti are worse sinners than the rest of us?

Pat Robertson's controversial statement regarding the Haiti earthquake is a hot item across the blogosphere (click here). Without necessarily interpreting what Robertson has intended to say, I myself have some thoughts on this issue.

Though Scripture is clear that though God's final outpouring of judgment and wrath is reserved for the very last days, he do sometimes intervene in history to execute his judgment and to make his wrath known. He may judge certain localities (Sodom & Gomorrah; Tyre, Nineveh). He may also judge certain individuals (Herod in Acts 12:22-23).

Yet those who are spared from divine wrath have this tendency to be self-righteous and judgmental. In the early 1990's, when severe calamities struck Luzon (1990 Killer quake; 1991 Pinatubo eruption), a heard a statement which goes like this: "Mas makasalan ang mga taga-Luzon kaysa sa mga taga-Mindanao." While Saddam Hussein was being executed, he was mocked heavily by a crowd.

These attitudes were addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 13:1-5:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." (NIV)

Jesus' point is that they are not better than the victims of massacres and calamities. They too are deserving of judgment unless they repent.

He further told them a parable: Luke 13: 6-9 Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, `For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?' " `Sir,' the man replied, `leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.' "

The tree was unfruitful after three years of cultivation so it deserves to be cut off. Yet it was given another year of intensified care.

Based on these teachings by the Lord, let me point out some things we should think about.
1. Let us be grateful for the patience of God. The whole world deserves judgment and wrath, yet he withholds what we deserve most of the time. Instead, he provides us with good things.

There was only one killer quake in Northern Luzon for the last 19 years though we are sinners and deserving of daily killer quakes.

2. Let us fear God and repent. The patience of God as displayed in delayed judgments does not mean that the day of reckoning shall not come. Do not listen to scoffers who say "Where is this `coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." (2 Peter 3:4). Remember the parable: he may give you an extra year of intensified care, but if you remain fruitless you shall be cut down.

3. Be grateful for the gift of repentance. Repentance is the only way to escape from his wrath. Yet the source of this repentance is God himself (2 Tim.2:25; Acts 11:18)

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Ten Percent of Registered Voters for Ang Ladlad?

In their campaign to convince people that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle both socially and morally, you will often hear the statistical claim that 10% of the population are homosexuals. This is cited confidently and authoritatively as if it is an unquestionable fact.

The latest person to make this assertion is Danton Remoto of the group Ang Ladlad. Should the Supreme Court affirm the legitimacy of Ang Ladlad as a party list group, Remoto expects that 10% of the 49 million registered voters will cast their votes in Ang Ladlad's favor. I am not an election expert, but as I recall, that would be enough to secure three seats in the House of Representatives.

Yet is it true that 10% of the population are homosexuals?

The source of the statistic frequently used is a study made more than 60 years ago led by a man named Alfred Kinsey. From the earliest days, the flaws in the study were evident as it doesn't represent the general population.

• Approximately 25% of the 5,300 individuals studied were prison inmates-- therefore they cannot have physical contact with the opposite sex.
• Kinsey himself admits that several hundred male prostitutes were used in this study.
• Volunteers were used in the study. Sexuality is a very sensitive issue that those who have the guts to voluntarily submit their selves to a study like this cannot represent the general population (consider also the more conservative culture of the 1940's)

The flaws in the study are so glaring that Paul Gebhard,  Kinsey's successor as director of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research attempted to clean up the mess in 1979 of the defects mentioned above and he came up with the conclusion that "none of Kinsey's original estimates were significantly affected" by these flaws. But Kinsey Institute's credibility is already in question and other studies say otherwise (click here). Another factor that affects their credibility are the serious allegations of child molestation during the course of the study.(Click here)

Aside from these flaws, the study is not being quoted accurately by those who use it:

"Kinsey did not say that 10 percent of the entire U.S. population was homosexual. Rather, he affirmed that ten percent of white American males were "more or less" exclusively homosexual for at least three years of their lives between the ages of 16 and 65. The statistic for females was five percent. The actual percentage of those thought to be exclusively homosexual for their entire lives was only four percent of men and two or three percent of women, all based on his allegedly representative sample of the population." (Joseph Gudel, Homosexuality: Fact and Fiction; Christian Research Journal)

Am I saying that Ang Ladlad cannot win in May? No. All I'm saying is the statistic being cited is seriously defective.

It is very possible that Ang Ladlad could still occupy three seats in the Lower House.Why? Because even heterosexuals could advocate the homosexual cause. As it is written: "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." (Romans 1:32 NIV)

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How John Piper uses Twitter

I hope you'll see principles of Twitter use that could also be applied to others such as blogging, Friendster, Facebook, fora (or should I say forums), etc. He calls these technologies as "gifts that God has given us" yet at the same time he recognizes the dangers that go with them, so we should be careful on how we use them.



You may also want to check out an article Piper wrote seven months ago: Why and How I Am Tweeting. You can follow Piper's tweets here.
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