to Forthright Forthright Magazine http://www.forthright.net Straight to the Cross We need news to share with the brotherhood. Send us your news to http://brotherhoodnews.com/. COLUMN: FINAL PHASE Nothing stays the same by J. Randal Matheny, editor http://tinyurl.com/7cdovj8 In this world nothing stays the same. Some people are already predicting that Facebook has peaked. The next big wave has yet to appear. Some say it could be non- commercial cooperative efforts like Diaspora or Friendica. One thing for sure, new challengers will arise. The powerhouses of today didn’t even exist five or ten years ago. Services and goods that we enjoyed yesterday may well be gone tomorrow. I was reminded of that today in several ways. One of my favorites, Posterous, announced today that the micro-blogging site had been bought out by Twitter. That may not be a good development. Or it could bring some advantages. On the other hand, my email service provider is rolling out a new interface. I was very pleased to experiment with the beta version today. The religious world is also in a turmoil. Today, a Catholic priest was defrocked for refusing to serve Mass to a lesbian. Just last week the Episcopal Church released a proposed draft of same-sex marriage rites. Even churches whose commitment is to follow the pattern for faith and practice laid out in the New Testament sometimes go off on a tangent. God will always have the seven thousand who refuse to kneel to the gods of power, pleasure, and so-called practical necessity. But nearby we may see the ground shift underneath us. The family of God may open itself to the fallacies of the devil. The most encouraging thing of all is that God's people always can start again. Some of them are meeting in homes in order to preserve sound doctrine. Some of them are finding other like-minded souls to band together and carry out the Lord’s will. We always have options for good and opportunities for the gospel. We can start again because God is always the same. His promise never fails. His Son "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!" (Hebrews 13:8, NET). Hitching ourselves to him will keep us from wandering off into the desert of damnable doctrine (verse 9). All the while, with his faithfulness to steel our resolve, channel our energies, and bless our commitment, we can give freely of ourselves to a selfish world. To shut out those who live under the control of their passions would close the door of heaven in their faces. So we make ourselves vulnerable like sheep in the midst of wolves. Because some of those wolves may not just be clothed as a sheep. Our presence may actually turn some of them into God's lambs. Such a welcome change is what we work for. -- To comment on this article, don't reply to this email. Rather, go here and insert your comment in the box below the article: http://tinyurl.com/7cdovj8 You can help get the word out. Here's how: http://www.forthright.net/help/