DISPATCHES

It was Thanksgiving Day....November 27....2008....and our beloved dog....Special....came in the house....and lay down and died. In my grief....as I buried him with the rain masking my tears. I needed something to occupy my time. I had heard about these things called 'blogs'....and later that night published my first post. That was going on eighteen years....and almost four-thousand posts ago. God had used the grief to turn my life in a new direction.

Jesus had just spoken in parables on the final judgment....and the tares and the wheat....and He then told the disciples how he would have to go to Jerusalem to die....(and be risen)....but Peter was not going to accept that. God's Word....if you can see it....is speaking to us in America today. Judgment is coming....but we like Peter will not accept that. We should read again the admonition that Jesus said to Peter....for it is to us also...."for you are not setting your mind on God's interests....but man's. (Matthew 16:23b NASB) This Christian Nationalism....and all the politics and the power....including the false messiah....or wolf in sheep's clothing....or false prophet....championed by so many....is not in God's interests....but our own!

AI is a genie that cannot be put back into the bottle. It is a done deal....and a death knell. Christian ministries are still debating the pros and the cons. If they knew the nearness of the Second Coming....they wouldn't be playing this little game. This is Bible prophecy on display for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.

The new film....Pressure....presents a different take on the D-Day invasion....focusing almost solely on the difficult weather forecast on which the status of the landings rested. There were very few war scenes....but it retained emotion through the descriptions of those who would perish....even if the seas were calm. What I liked most about the film was that it presented the frailties of all in that war room....Eisenhower and Montgomery and other real-to-life characters....without ridiculing them....or tarnishing their reputations....and that there was a true unity of spirit at the end.

Have you been following the relationship between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump? I've warned in these posts since early in Trump's first term....that Netanyahu should under no circumstances....trust this man....but oh....just like evangelicals here in America....he was taken in. Trump is a destroyer....and I've said this for nearly a decade now....that he either purposely destroys people who do not bow down to him....or others are destroyed simply by flying too close to his flame. The questions will eventually come to these men in the administration on how we got into the position that we are in right now. John Bolton and other experienced diplomats and National Security Council people have to be staring in the mirror at night....wondering the same thing....how the United States of America....all politics aside....let such an inexperienced and even clueless group of sycophants in positions of power....and this with no Congress to serve as a buffer

Ben Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew who graduated from high school at 16 years old and at 20....in 2004....wrote a critique....Brainwashed....on the American higher education system....of which I read at the time. He quit Breitbart because of ethical reasons....and became ultra-popular with his website....Daily Wire. He was a Cruz man in 2016....as I was....and did not vote for Trump....but did vote for him in 2020....and has gone back and forth a few times. His ideological enemies are gloating right now because his empire is declining fast. Trump spawned a number of horrible influencers. Shapiro seems to be the odd man out right now....or....a conservative between two evils. What he does not realize is that his declining popularity is a blessing....because to be popular in this cultural and ideological climate....means one would be doing something wrong.. 

I know next to nothing about NASCAR. Somewhere back in the mid-60's....my uncle....a Catholic priest....took me to the Michigan 500....(maybe that is what it was called)....and we saw a race where Cale Yarborough beat Leroy Yarborough by a nose....or whatever they call it. This week saw the passing of one of NASCAR's big names. I viewed a tape of him only a week before....after winning a race....and smiling and waving to the fans in the stands....pausing only to lift his arm and cough into his sleeve. We....none of us....knows what a day might bring....and we acknowledge that....but not so much for America....as we are sure that God will keep us. This confidence that we do not deserve....has kept us from humbling ourselves in repentance.

Eventually....Trump money making schemes using the power of the presidency will catch up to him. As with this and everything else about how Trump has conducted himself in this second administration of going out...."conquering....and to conquer"....what is most incredible about it is that evangelicals threw away all of what they knew from God's Word to be warnings and admonitions....to go after money gold and silver and other things that perish.

We Have Found A Way To Defend Ourselves

 "And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals."

              This is Judges 2:11....ESV....but the phrase....or a phrase very similar to it....occurs dozens of times in the Old Testament. At times it boggles the mind....as in the case of Gideon....after he had through most dramatic means....saved the people from the yearly plundering of the Midianites....but no sooner was he gone than the people turned to the gods of the Midianites again! Time and time again we read that Israel was saved from enemies....and then again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD!
               I'm writing from personal experience of forty-plus years of reading these verses....that I tended to view the people of Israel as some strange ancient people that obviously had a problem remembering what God had done for them....and then....incredibly....they followed the gods of the peoples around them....and even wound up sacrificing their children to these demon gods!
               I lived a fairly normal life in American evangelicalism....not realizing that I had also forsaken the God of our fathers in the faith....and followed the Baals! No....there were no little statues that I prayed to....nor did I find a tall sturdy tree under which to set up an altar to one of these gods....indeed I continued to read the Old Testament....and the testimony of the history of God's people....and set myself above them....until I over time became saturated with the preaching of men from the past....Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones and the like....and men today who preach like preachers from the past....MacArthur and Sproul and Piper and others....and the Word of God as presented from these men....cut deep....and I then could see my own idols that I had set up!
               We are known as pro-life....anti-abortion....an abomination that is the same as sacrificing our children to pagan gods....but as the frog in the kettle was slowly boiled....we came to sacrifice our children in different ways....through entertainments primarily. There is an old and purposely comical fundamentalist phrase....certainly not heard any more....'I don't drink....smoke....or chew....or go with girls who do.' Well that's kind of like what we have become. We don't do drugs....or use foul language....or gamble....or steal from others....or lie or curse others....and we go to temple....(church in our case)....and offer sacrifices of doves and lambs....(everyone has a ministry of some sort)....and we keep the ceremonial laws of Advent and Easter....and rally around the flag....and have our regular Bible studies....but we have our own....and numerous they are...idols that we worship. The little religious figurine became the trophy....and the high hill under a terebinth tree became the megachurch....or the denomination....or our church with a pastor that would never offend anyone by actually telling us that we are sacrificing to idols and have forgotten the old paths of our fathers.
                We have found a way today to defend ourselves....vicariously....by defending our church or our pastor. It makes us appear humble....when in fact we are anything but. So....the Midianites and the Amalekites are here again....plundering....and we are crying out to God. There is no Gideon....and God has taken away most of those men who preached as preachers from the past....but we are not left as orphans....for we can still cry out....Abba Father....have mercy upon our backslidings....and restore us....not as a Christian nation of which we never were....nor as a glorious church....of which we never were....but for Thy glory and Thy namesake alone!