...who trains my hands for war...

         I had been stalled on the first verse of the 144th Psalm for the last 24 hours, just reading, rereading and meditating on it. David wrote:

Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
who trains my hands for war,
and my fingers for battle.

         It's been said that this was the favorite verse of Robert E. Lee, and Martin Sheen utters these lines in his portayal of Lee in a scene from the film Gettysburg, but they are King David's words, inspired by God, for His children, to sing and receive His blessing in doing so. In our church service this morning we sang two songs from the 18th Psalm which is very similar in meaning to the 144th Psalm. John Calvin thought the difference in the two was primarily in that King David was "triumphant throughout" the 18th Psalm but in the 144th Psalm there is a sense of "fear and anxiety, there being some remaining enemies to cause him apprehension."  The 144th Psalm continues:

he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield and he in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples under me.

and...

Stretch out your hand from on high;
rescue me and deliver me from the many waters,
from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies
and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

         When I read these lines, my mind did not race to America's armies and war, nor did it even go to spiritual warfare where it more rightly belongs, but rather to America's nearing collapse along with the futures of our children. It went to a state religion where Christ was barred from its pulpits, to state armies of Brown Shirts keeping the people in line, to a new constitution protecting Mother Earth while devising means to hasten the deaths of the young, the old and the useless...this to insure leisure time for those who sign on to this more progressive America.. Most Americans haven't the slightest idea how close they are to this scenario. The television tells them, both directly through news and documentaries, and indirectly through its vast assortment of entertainment programming that fundamentalists are intolerant, hateful, small-minded and divisive...and many Americans believe it. Anyone who believes the Bible to be the Living Word of God is a fundamentalist to them, and only the pronouncer of liberal theology is welcome in their courts. This new vigilant atheist thinks that they are ushering Christ out of the door but are oblivious to His power that alone permits even their blasphemous utterings. David's words were not written to us but they can be applied to Christians in the midst of conflict, as would his prayer and his vow:

I will sing a new song to you, O God;
upon a ten stringed harp I will play to you.

         King David's prayer was really no different in essence than one that I would give, or have given, or presumably you, or any of our God-fearing leaders would give as we call out to God in times of trouble:

May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace;
may our granaries be full,
providing all kinds of produce;
may our sheep bring forth thousands
and ten thousands in our fields
may our cattle be heavy with young,
suffering no mishap or failure in bearing,
may there be no cry of distress in our streets!
Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall!
Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.

         Our nation is crumbling. We  may not have started it but are no less to blame for we were not vigilant, and more importantly our reverance for God had waned as we prospered and with no one more than I. We are indeed in the middle of the battlefield of desires vs consequences. It's fought in the halls of Congress, the boardrooms of  executives, denominational synods, the ivory towers and ivy covered walls of Higher Education, and in the playing fields of our own minds. Ignore it if you want but should the news from the front concern you, or cause you to tremble, it would behoove you and I and everyone concerned to pray as Kind David did; only for us it would be for the warfare of a sound mind and determination vs chaos and surrender:

Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
who trains my hands for war,
and my fingers for battle.....

A Supermajority...not A Super President

         My blog of this past November 8th titled The Unoccupied American included these comments, "The American political landscape is an important part of the architectural plans of these elites (and establishment politicians) for in order to retain power, they have to insure that real independent, honest thinkers with integrity, do not enter their enclaves as had happened in 2010....I suspect that they have a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A is doing everything that they can, incognito of course, to help the former governor of Massachusetts. Should that fail, Plan B would have to be a brokered convention, something that we have not seen since 1952. Should no one arrive in Tampa in August with enough delegates for the nomination the back-room shenanigans will go into full force and names such as Jeb Bush and Chris Christie will be offered up in a deal we can't refuse....this is how they work...we are to be manipulated and if this is not possible, we are to be overcome with political force."
         Yesterday, the topic of a possible brokered convention came up with a number of different news sources and the names of Jeb Bush and Chris Christie were at the top of the short list of possibilities. One name that I did not see was South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and there is a reason for that for no one scares the establishment Republicans more than he does. He's not only another Reagan, he is potentially a better than Reagan.
         On my recent trip to the south I started a number of conversations on politics. We would talk for a few minutes and then I would bring up the name of Jim DeMint. The response was always the same and along this line, Oh...Jim DeMint...yeah he's the best!" This blog isn't about him for I have written often on who he is for a few years now. Rather, the blog is a reaffirmation of my thoughts in yesterday's blog.
         The powers that be in Republican politics want a candidate of their choosing to further the direction that they have had us on for quite some time. Mitt Romney is acceptable and they are more than a little concerned right now. We, the electorate, need to do our best on the White House but focus specifically on the Congress. If we had a supermajority of 67% in both Houses of Congress, even Barack Obama would have a very hard time achieving his goal of transforming this nation into a second-rate socialist member of the world body of nations. The Tea Party forte is not in a national election but rather in elections throughout the nation. The American voter will have no excuse whatsoever this time around for although Barack Obama's place of birth, associations and mentors, academic and scholastic records remain hidden in obfuscation and denial his contempt for the Constitution, his mobster mentality in rewarding cronies, his fiddling while America burns foreign policy and his shell game economic policy litters his campaign trail even now. If Barack Obama is given a second term then the travesty of justice would be for us not too collapse. Ultimately, our future is in our pulpits. If they preach the latest church growth, social gospel, touchy-feely, deification of man, this is your day for a miracle sermons it would not matter what person is our President our even what party dominates our Congress.  Our problems are far deeper than than the political sphere but, by and large, we don't realize that. Presidential politics actually turn us away from what we need which is a representative government... representative of a God-fearing, well-informed, down to earth, humble, hard working people who know that liberty is God given and only sustainable if we give the credit to who bestows it. Only the cross of Christ liberates, all else is the self-imposed tyranny of Bunyans's Vanity Fair.

http://www.senateconsevativesfund.com/

A Coup In Progress

It's only natural that we can show courage while only on the periphery of conflicts but when we are actually involved in the conflict the reality of fear creeps in. Here is why so many nations of the world have one up on us for they do not live in perennially safe harbors as America has been. Take Lebanon for example. The people there may know that a war is imminent but they also know exactly what to expect. For us it is different. My concern for the safety of our nation began over a decade ago. One would only have to read here and there in my blog to get a glimpse of my extreme concerns. I write about tyranny and totalitarianism with defiance but I know very well that all of life changes when the final assault begins and I see that final assault beginning right now. Consequently that defiance becomes mixed with dire trepidation. This is no game. It's not just political rhetoric where exaggerations are often used to motivate people. I refer you to my blog of just a few days ago on Erwin Lutzer's book When A Nation Forgets God, 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany. The Obama administration methodology is way too similar and very likely purposely patterned after the power grab of the Third Reich. Pshaw...you say? Might I remind you that most of the German people said the same thing. Our current government, through its many tentacles, is not merely discouraging dissent but applying pressure, even threatening, what has been a bulwark of our freedoms. The assault on our churches is already beginning and one need look no further than the move against the Catholic church in the last few days to see this. Our schools have long since been commandeered to program our children. Even our families have been given notice of their proper place and there is disdain for our Constitution on the Supreme Court, the very body charged with upholding it! If one complains too loudly he is immediately under suspicion. Two things are necessary on our part: the first is the temporal and the lesser of the two in importance. We need an overwhelming Republican control of our Congress for it is the branch that, by design, is closer to the people and more responsive to those who put them in office. It can impeach the President and remove Supreme Court justices, and of course it can make law. Our Executive Branch can too easily be chosen by the elites of this nation, by big money and by any other coalition that has power over the people's minds. I want to see a strong Democratic Party but only as it pertains to checks and balances within our political process, not as a tool, a bully pulpit and a rubber stamp for subversive forces pretending to be compassionate and patriots.  This particular President has been amassing powers that were in no way given to him by our Constitution. It is a coup in progress. He needs replaced this November but even his successor will need to be reigned in. The second, and by far the most important thing that we as a people have to do is this; every American that loves their family, their country and their freedoms needs to escape the cultural quicksand that permits, even encourages, one to gaze in amazement up at the bright lights of our technological wonderland and entertainment paradise while at the same time sinking into the muck and mire of our Godless quest for self-autonomy, and pray with an earnestness heretofore only seen in our own personal emergencies. We need to pray for forgiveness for permitting these travesties to come upon us, pray for mercies not deserved, pray for discernment previously not sought and pray for the strength that only comes from Christ who strengtheneth. I have no idea if we have enough time left to hold on to our country. Jonah preached a warning to Nineveh but Nahum, years later, preached only impending doom to the same city. I had breakfast today in a restaurant where two televisions blared on my left and my right. On the one the audience was obviously thrilled by merely being in the presence of the ladies of The View, on the other was raucous laughter with Ellen DeGeneres. I could barely eat my food knowing that much of American womanhood had been enticed into this pit while at the same time our men waste their time on trivialities at the expense of their family's security, their country and their eternal souls. We refuse to learn from history and consider ourselves immune from tyranny and collapse. Why? Because we were pampered, then we became demanding of not liberties but entitlements and now we are just going to stamp our feet and hold our breath until we get what we want but such is not how God deals with men. Ultimately, we will either humble ourselves...prostrate ourselves...before the One who was not only our Benefactor but our Sustainer, or we will learn the hard way that we will fall as easily as any nation or empire before us. No, there's a lot of bravado before the war but it dissipates quickly when the canons go off and the armies charge. Many of us rail on about tyrants, and not many more than I, but the door of the wooden horse has opened and the barbarians are within the gates. It is for us now to apportion our time where we might defend our Constitution and secure a future for our children and even more importantly to heed the words of Isaiah 55:6-9

Seek the Lord while He may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

No Problem Mon

The ten day break in posts here was due to a cruise my wife and I and 160 other Christians of like mind had taken. I know.....160 other people even slightly similar to me is a scary thought! Only two incidents kept it from being a perfect trip. I walked into a restroom at the Atlanta airport only to wonder why there were so many big round mirrors and also why the first two (of about 20) people I saw looking into those mirrors looked liked women. This took all of two seconds as I ran out to a chorus of laughter and comments on the coloration of my face. The second incident involved losing all of my tobacco at the beginning of the trip. I was determined to find pipe tobacco in the small town of Falmouth, Jamaica. No problem mon! I was taken down an alley (some will do anything for tobacco) and sold this rope of what I was assured was pipe tobacco. I mean, like man, that tobacco was groovy. I mean peace and love was all I could think about while smoking it, that and maybe robbing a bank to get money for some more.....Folks...I'm kidding here!!!   It was just tobacco and did suffice (barely) for a couple of days. Anyway, as I always do when travelling, I try to strike up conversations. Two in particular stand out. We met a young Asian Canadian who attends York University in Toronto. He was very intelligent, choosing all his words carefully, and so polite. His parents are conservative and try their best to influence him but he has so far retained a liberal bent to his thinking. The other conversation was with an Englishman. I asked him if he was interested at all in politics. He gave me a firm "no." I persisted a little bit and he opened up. He talked about Margaret Thatcher...excuse me...Lady Thatcher and Churchill with great admiration. He went on about today's politicians and used a word I had not heard before...and subsequently forgot so I can't look it up. He talked about the solemnity of the moment when he visited the river and the spot that The Bridge On The River Kwai was filmed. All this and more from someone not interested in politics! By the way...there was no Internet for me on the cruise. No Internet and no (good) tobacco....the only thing left to sustain life was air, food and water and fortunately there was plenty of that. The remainder of this blog is more serious, and directed, as I've done in the past, to people from other countries who happen by this blog while navigating the World Wide Web. You ask me my thoughts on politics in America? Well, I'd be happy to answer your question. We are a quasi-democratic society right now. Oh yes, we have elections but don't let the appearance of democracy lead you to believe that it always accurately describes what is actually taking place. Take our current presidential primary season.....we are free to vote but not to think beforehand. It is what's going on in our minds that departs a little from democracy in action, particularly this year where big money is vying to be the determining factor. The "elites" place their bets and control the spin of the wheel. "We the people"... get to watch. I sat in a seat at Gate B19 of the Atlanta airport and had to laugh as the CNN newsman on the television over my head adamantly declared that after the Nevada primary win for Mitt Romney, it was time for Newt Gingrich to get out. I don't think that Tass or Pravda could work more efficiently at times than our own "news" media. It's said that the Independents (those neither Republican or Democrat) will decide this election but that is not correct. It is rather that the non-thinker...the "oh look, there goes a bunny!" and "what in the world are you writing a stupid blog while the Super Bowl is on" American whose vote will decide, and whose vote can be bought with minimal use of smoke and mirrors. In order to beat the system in this particular election a candidate for President will have to reach beyond the pocketbook and no one is doing that very well right now. We have a Marxist President and they are ranting and raving over the menu on the Titanic. Unfortunately for the Elites, we the people do have more control over our Congress but even here we have to struggle, for once someone has had that special parking spot at the Capitol for a couple of years, or the Kremlin's or Parliament's I presume, it's tempting to give in to the bullying to keep it. Unfortunately also for them we have a rock-solid, perspicuous Constitution that should protect our freedoms but unfortunately for us they have had remarkable success in appointing the judges who adjudicate that Constitution. Are you with me so far? Yes it's bleak... but we have one redeeming characteristic. We are a very religious people... but unfortunately again, we are also a prodigal people now sleeping with the pigs. I wish that I could tell you where we will wind up but I don't know. I am though, confident to write this...if we recover from what we have become it will have had to have coincided with a revival within America and a reformation within the American church, and if we do not recover, something not only possible but probable, the church will be revived and reformed in the devastating aftermath. Either of the two scenarios will only bring glory to God.