Lets see. This one should be short. The BMCR website is back up. Thanks goes to Ashley for all her hard work. Registration will open in November. The local telephone company (Nemont) is finally going to run a hard-line out here for Internet. That is supposed to be installed by the new year. I can’t wait. Knowing it is coming makes using the satellite that much worse. I’m planning on updating the students router this week with IPCop 2.0. Let me see. Nope nothing else to report. It is posts like these that make people not read blogs.
Eternal Security
This will be my second entry in the “Theology” section of this blog. Over the past couple years I have come to the conclusion I need to know that what I believe has some basis in scripture, other than “I know it’s in there some where.” These posts are me laying out what I believe, and why I believe it. They are not exhaustive. I am not a theologian. People much smarter than me have been over these things and have come to quite different conclusions. That is ok. I am not trying to attack or refute any one. This is what I believe and why I believe it. As always the things I post here come from my head and as such are prone to error.
So, can a Christian loose their salvation? Just so we are clear as to what I mean by that. I mean John Doe was saved when he was 22. Had he died he would have gone to heaven. Now John Doe is 26, has turned his back on God and decided the whole gospel thing is a bunch of bunk. If he dies now he will go to hell. In answer to the question I say yes, a Christian can loose their salvation.
Hebrews 6:4-6 (NIV) It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Non-believers do not have the Holy Spirit (assuming my theology is correct) that is something only believers receive. If you have that and turn away you can’t come back. I say that qualifies as a loss of salvation. How does it work out? I don’t know. I am not qualified to figure out who has gone to far and who hasn’t. That is God’s job not mine.
John 15:1-7 (NIV) “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”
The disciples were already in the vine. Christ told them to “remain” in Him. Only if you remain in Him and He in you will you bear fruit. If you don’t remain in Him you are thrown into the fire and burned. It doesn’t say “you will remain in me” it says “if you remain in me”. Remaining part of the vine is not a done deal.
Ezekiel 33:7-19 (KJV) So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live. Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal. When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.
Of all the passages I think this one lays it out the clearest. You have the wicked and the righteous. If the wicked man continues in his wickedness he dies. If he turns from is wickedness to righteousness he lives. Likewise if the righteous man turns from his righteousness to wickedness he dies, but if he remains righteous he lives. Neither life nor death is set in stone. Both of them have an “if” attached.
These are some of the Biblical reasons I believe you can loose your salvation. I want to be clear, I don’t believe you just “accidentally” loose your salvation. I don’t wake up every morning going “Oh I hope I’m saved today.” Just as accepting Christ is not an accident, neither is rejecting Him. How does all this work out? I don’t know. How does it work out in specific instances? Again I haven’t a clue. I don’t have all the answers, that isn’t what this post is about. This post simply answers the question “Why does Eric believe he can loose his salvation?” I’m well aware I could be wrong, obviously I don’t think I am.
Edit 6/14/13
Romans 11:17-23 (NIV)If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
I’m not sure I need to comment much on this passage. We have to continue in God’s kindness or we will be cut off (after having been grafted in). If Israel does not persist in unbelief the will be grafted in again (they were in, are now out, but can come back).
My six month update
It’s been a while. I’ll try and do a brief but thorough update (like that is possible). My Paraguay trip was good, though I did pick up some bugs in my feet and my stomach (they are all gone now). Summer went well, though I had some serious attitude issues. Thanks to a generous donation to camp we got a fiber line installed between the Bears Tooth Dining hall and the main office, as well as four new computers along with some software. Both the BMCR and the Arrowhead websites got hacked, and as of now only the Arrowhead one is back up. The BMCR website is still a work in progress. Warren Barnard our facilities director had a two month sabbatical so I was in charge of facilities and I.T. That basically sucked, but Warren is back now so I’m just I.T. again. Score! I’m sure I’ve forgotten lots of things but this is supposed to be brief.
Psalm 119:36-37 Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.
Various Random Thoughts
Let me see. There has been a lot of things happening at camp, but it’s been so long since I’ve blogged it would take to much time to go over everything. I’ve got all my ducks in a row for Paraguay, so I’ll be leaving the 14th of May and getting back June 1st. That will be an interesting way to start the summer.
That paragraph wasn’t completely random.
Moving on to a work update. It has become apparent in recent weeks that my staff has forgotten/misunderstood/or has never received any training on our computer/phone systems. So I’ve been tasked with going over how all of that works. I had forgotten how pathetic my documentation is. Any who I’ve been trying to pull all the information together, sort it, and then figure out how to present it clearly. I suspect a large majority of the current confusion is a result of my poor communication skills. Hopefully this refresher course will remedy that.
Ezekiel 24:16-18 Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even, my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
Every time I read this I am blown away. I cannot fathom this kind of submission. I want to learn how to do this, but I’m scared of the cost. His wife was killed as an object lesson, and the lesson wasn’t even directed at him. I can’t wrap my mind around it.
I am Really Bad at Making Titles
So it’s been a while since Christmas. You would think that a month would give me lots to report, but not really. Four and a half months of work finally paid off, and I got our new authentication system up and running (OpenLDAP if any one is interested). I’ve also worked on the intranets for Arrowhead and BMCR. Last weekend I was host for a guest group. Other than that I haven’t been doing much of any thing. Well, I have been watching a lot of NCIS (my sister got me seasons one through eight for Christmas). I sent in my passport stuff, only to have them return it because they didn’t like my picture (insert joke here). I went into town yesterday to get the picture redone and the application back in the mail. I get my shots next Tuesday (that should be loads of fun). Yup that’s about it.
Of Christmas (And Other Things)
I’m really not sure where to start. A lot has happened since my last post. The big news is I’ll be going to Paraguay this coming May. It was really weird. My uncle mentioned he and his wife were going down. I told him to get me some dates because I might like to come along. The next day God provided $3000 for the trip (along with the dates May 7th-24th). I didn’t even have the chance to ask any one. I was completely blown away. I mean, what do you do with that (other than go on the trip obviously)? That was cool. Cool is of course a complete understatement, but it’s what I came up with.
Christmas has been wonderful. Christmas eve was spent with my dads family and as usual it was a blast. I don’t tell them very well, but I am always glad to see all of them. I have a great family. Christmas day was with my family, and then mom’s family (and some friends) came over in the afternoon. I got everything I asked for this year, and some stuff I wasn’t expecting. Again I was amazed at God’s provision. I didn’t need any of this stuff, but He gave it to me any ways. Let’s just say this Christmas feels more like a Thanksgiving.
Psalm 32:5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
Christmas Break Hurry Up
What can I say? I enjoy breaks.
As I suspected it has gotten very quite here at camp and I can’t say I like it much. The weather has been nice. My Samba/LDAP project is finally coming along. On a side note: did you know Windows clients cannot join a Samba domain unless there is a WINS server available? Further more if you don’t tell your DHCP server to tell it’s clients where the WINS server is you have to manually tell each client. Both these things I discovered today after about two hours of frustration. I spent my morning helping Tom sand and stain the trim for his office, so I had a rather well rounded day.
Psalm 28:1-3 Unto thee will I cry, O Lord by rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.
Psalm 28:7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my hear trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.
Jeremiah 36:3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
God treats us like we have a choice. He must know if Judah is going to turn, yet he speaks to Jeremiah as if Judah has a choice. I know free will doesn’t seem to be spelled out in the Bible but it is everywhere inferred.
Thanksgiving Break
Well, it was really good. I was again at the Stevenson’s. I read two and a half books, watched some movies, and made the mistake of participating in the annual Black Friday shopping trip. Once was enough. I don’t plan on doing that again.
For work I’m trying to figure out how to make our Samba domain controller authenticate off an LDAP server, without totally disrupting every ones work. This could take some time. The up side is I’m going to have a lot of that this winter. Hansen’s and Bree are leaving this Thursday, so things are going to get even quieter here at camp (if you don’t know who these people are that’s ok). Since I can’t think of anything else to say I’ll stop.
John 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
Quick Update
So I seem to be spacing these posts out. I suppose that’s because not much new has been happening. A quick update on me. I’m doing well. I’ve been keeping busy at work. Last week I set up my own DHCP/DNS server (I’ve been using the one built into IPCop). That was cool. I’ve got the DHCP server dynamically updating the DNS server so that all my names and IP’s stay synced. Other than that not much is new.
Oh, I did slide off the road and into the ditch today. As accidents go it was really quite nice. I was in the ditch and then out again in about 10 minutes. I slid in, got stuck, and this guy showed up with his truck and a tow strap. Like I said, in and out. No one got hurt, my car is fine, and my ego is slowing recovering.
John 18:8-9 Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he; if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.
I always assumed when I read that Jesus was referring to salvation. This makes it look more like he was referring to their physical well being.
John 18:11 Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?
Again and again I am blown away at Christ’s complete and utter submission.
gmail Clone
Something I need to make absolutely clear from the start. This post is NOT about setting up an actual email server. This server sits on our local network, behind our router/firewall. It does not have direct access to the Internet. As such I was not focusing on security and will not vouch for it (this setup) being secure.
Ok, now that that is done, I need to give a little background. Here at BMCR we have satellite Internet. This means we have very limited bandwidth. In order to stay under our cap, I limit bandwidth per day by IP address. Once you hit your daily limit you can’t get to the Internet till the next day. That is all well and good, but if you hit your limit you can’t check your email. This was starting to be a problem.
Enter in these three programs postfix, dovecot, and offlineimap. With this setup, our server syncs itself with our Google Apps email accounts, and then we check and send our email on/from the local server. This way, even if you hit your bandwidth limit for the day, you can still do email (it also means that if for some strange reason all of Google’s servers die you have a local backup copy of all your emails). I installed this on Ubuntu server 10.04 (the 32bit version).
I offer no guarantees that any of this will work for you, nor do I guarantee that it wont completely destroy your system if you try it.
Sources:
Postfix install and configuration: Techienote.com
Postfix setup for multiple smtp servers: Cyberciti.biz (I don’t actually talk about this in this post, but I did set it up.)
Dovecot install and configuration: Webmonkey.com
Offlineimap: Offlineimap.org
Postfix
Install
sudo apt-get install postfix -y
The “-y” matters, but I’m not sure why. At the configuration screen select “No Configuration”
sudo cp /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.debian /etc/postfix/main.cf
Configuration
sudo vi /etc/postfix/main.cf
This is my main.cf:
# See /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.dist for a commented, more complete version
# Debian specific: Specifying a file name will cause the first
# line of that file to be used as the name. The Debian default
# is /etc/mailname.
#myorigin = /etc/mailname
smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu)
biff = no
# appending .domain is the MUA's job.
append_dot_mydomain = no
# Uncomment the next line to generate "delayed mail" warnings
#delay_warning_time = 4h
readme_directory = no
# TLS parameters
smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/sll/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
smtpd_use_tls=no
smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache
smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache
# See /usr/share/doc/postfix/TLS_README.gz in the postfix-doc package for
# information on enabling SSL in the smtp client
myhostname = repository.bmcr
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases
alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases
myorigin = /etc/mailname
mydestination =
relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:submission
mynetworks = 192.168.1.0/24, 127.0.0.0/8
mailbox_size_limit = 0
recipient_delimiter = +
default_transport = smtp
relay_transport = smtp
inet_protocols = all
home_mailbox = email/
mailbox_command =
# SASL Settings
smtp_use_tls=yes
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/cacert.pem
smtp_sender_dependent_authentication = yes
sender_dependent_relayhost_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/relayhost_map
smtp_generic_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/generic
Just a note, the “home_mailbox” parameter. On our server every ones email is in a folder called “email” in their home directory. You can call that folder whatever you want.
sudo echo "myfully.qualifieddomain.name" > /etc/mailname
sudo vi /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
This opens the postfix password file. One username and password per line.
For example:
#Per-sender authentication username@Repository.BMCR username@bmcrministries.org:password #Default login [smtp.gmail.com]:587 username@bmcrministries.org:password
I’ll try and explain the following commands, but the sources links will have better explanations (owing to the fact they know what they are doing).
This secures the password file (the passwords are stored in it plain text):
sudo chmod 400 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
Postfix keeps some kind of a database hash of the postfix password file and the mailname file. These update the databases after a change (these must be run whenever you modify there respective files):
sudo postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
sudo newaliases (this is for the /etc/mailname file… I think)
Setup the CA certificate. This is a self-signed certificate, so most email clients/browsers will throw up a warning. Remember this is running on our local network and isn’t accessible from outside.
sudo touch /etc/postfix/cacert.pem
sudo cat /etc/ssl/certs/Thawte_Premium_Server_CA.pem >> /etc/postfix/cacert.pem
Now restart postfix.
sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart
To test postfix:
sudo apt-get install mailutils This will let you send an email from the command line.
echo “We rolling, yo” | mail -s “Sent from Repository” someone@somewhere.com
If you’ve got everything configured properly this should send an email. The subject line will be the text following the “-s” and the body will be the text following “echo”. The address is that of the recipient.
A couple of notes:
I had ‘inet_interfaces’ explicitly stated in my main.cf. For some reason that didn’t work. I removed the line and it defaulted properly. Once that was done I started getting alias.db errors, which were fixed by ‘sudo newaliases’. That was some how tied to ‘mynetworks’. That should default to the local subnet and local host, however I had to explicitly put that in. Once these things were figured out I could send email using Thunderbird.
Dovecot (IMAP server)
Install
sudo apt-get install dovecot-imapd
Configuration
sudo nano /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
Find “protocols” and set it to “protocols = imap imaps”
Find “mail_location” and set that to “mail_location = maildir:/home/%u/email:LAYOUT=fs” (if you are using a different folder name make sure to use that instead)
Offlineimap
Install
For whatever reason I couldn’t get the Offlineimap in the Ubuntu repositories to work, so I installed from a different repository.
In order to add a ppa run this command:
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
Then add the ppa:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pomeo/offlineimap
Then of course:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install offlineimap
Offlineimap is configured on a per user basis. Each user will have an .offlineimaprc file in their home directory. OfflineIMAP is very picky about the configuration file. If you are getting errors open the file up again and double check your settings. For example if you have a space before “ui = TTY.TTYUI” it will error out.
My offlineimaprc:
[general]
accounts = BMCR
ui = TTY.TTYUI
[Account BMCR]
#Profile for local mail
localrepository = localrep
#Profile for remote mail
remoterepository = remoterep
[Repository localrep]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/email/
[Repository remoterep]
type = IMAP
remotehost = imap.gmail.com
ssl = yes
remoteuser = someone@somewhere.com
remotepass = password
nametrans = lambda folder: re.sub('.*Drafts$', 'Drafts', re.sub('.*Sent Mail$', 'Sent_Mail', re.sub('.*Trash$', 'Trash', folder)))
folderfilter = lambda foldername: foldername not in ['[Gmail]/All Mail','[Gmail]/Spam','[Gmail]/Starred','[Gmail]/Important']
maxconnections = 2
I would also chmod this to 400 when your done as it also contains a plain text password. The documentation at offlineimap.org should walk you through all the options I’ve used.
I hope this was useful. If something is un-clear, or simply wrong please let me know and I’ll try and fix it.