The Star-Spangled Banner............Redux

The Star-Spangled Banner

         I've researched this time and again and cannot come up with the particular person. It wasn't too long after the terrorism of 9/11, maybe a year, that a famous American rock star returned from touring in Europe. As he travelled around the United States after being out of the country for a while he was amazed at how many American flags were being flown in front of individual homes. I cannot remember his exact quote but in essence, seeing so many flags flown.....seeing such evidence of nationalism....of love of country....well, it made him ill! I think that his remark made me ill, for I may not remember the quote verbatim but I have never forgotten his admittance of revulsion at seeing the Stars And Stripes flown from so many homes!
         Let me set the scene for you that I experienced tonight. The setting was a church....in a fairly conservative community...a community where even today many American flags are flown on the front porches of people's homes.....mine being one of them.  It was a benefit where classical music artists, both professional and students of the genre, donated their time and extraordinary talents with the proceeds in the form of donations going to a very good cause. Just about all of the people were seated and chatting with neighbors and friends who sat around them. Two very young, pretty and talented girls set the ambiance for such an event by playing their violins very softly. So softly that the music was barely discernible over the conversations and laughter.
         They played one piece after another and included in this was the Star-Spangled Banner. One by one the people in the audience turned to the two young violinists and stood up until all in attendance were standing. The girls must have thought that the main concert was beginning and they stopped playing. The audience laughed at this to ease the violinist's embarrassment and someone must have told the girls to begin playing again. They did and we softly sang along... the words penned by Francis Scott Key during another period when our nation was under attack. It was an emotional moment for me, a stark change of tempo and attentiveness, so natural, yet so almost out of place today depending on the venue, an audience picking up on the faint notes of our national anthem and immediately standing. It was a beautiful moment really, and an encouraging one!

 

More Food Sir?

         OK....I'm going to conclude this three-post series to college students with a piece of very practical advice. You are a little bit more pensive than most of the other students around you. At least it appears that way for they always seem to be talking sports or girls (boys) while you are often nagged by doubts that life is not as carefree as that. Some of you were raised in church. You're not angry at it for all the people were loving but you are sure that there must be more to the Christian Faith. You want it to be so and time and again you tried to renew the feelings you once had years earlier. Or you may not have been raised in a Christian or even religious home but on a very few occasions, maybe it was in a conversation or over something you read about or heard, you felt a jolt to your system as if it were a jolt from God. Maybe it was a sudden consciousness of your own sin against a holy God or maybe it was intellectual where some particular thought all of a sudden made sense about the Bible and faith in God but it disappeared quickly.
        I've been where you are on a few occasions in my youth and mentioned some of them in the course of this blog of five years, but I would like to mention two of them here. The first was in 1982. God was moving mightily in my heart but I had little to no knowledge to make sense of things or to guide me. I needed help. So I called a television ministry and simply asked if they knew of a church in my area where I might hear about this born again thing. They recommended a church and my wife and I attended there for about ten years and I'm very thankful for that. By then I was reading older Christian books like it was going out of style, which by the way I think that it is, and I saw some fairly serious errors in today's modern theology of which that church was a part. I was like Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist who had the audacity to take his bowl up and plead....Please Sir, may I have more food? I needed help again and again I made a phone call to a minister that I heard on the radio. Again I was directed to a church in my area. I wasn't afraid to ask for help and that's where I hope that you are today.
         I can't recommend a church to you for obvious reasons... I don't know you or where you live, but I can do this. I can recommend a resource that if you give it a chance and give it time you will find answers and you will find people that you can call for further help. It's a 24/7 internet/radio ministry. It has numerous teachers on it and all of them are sound in their doctrine. You can tune in any time of the day or night...any day of the week. How easy is that? You can listen to it online or get an app for your iPhone or iPad. The url is www.refnet.fm. I'll be praying that some who found their way to this rather odd blog of mine, which really isn't even a blog, will make the effort and find these teachers!

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John Kennedy's "last official words" never delivered

         The following are two posts. The first from this past Spring and the second from almost three years ago. I hope to be on a university campus a few hours after posting these. Unless God's Spirit works mightily in the hearts and minds of our youth... we as a nation, have little hope to turn back those who by denying our heritage and distorting our past.... destroy our discernment in charting our future. It was not chance that President John Kennedy's last official words, which you will read about below, were never delivered, for we would not have believed them nor heeded them and our nation fifty years later is one of leaderless chaos, tottering on a precipice, oblivious to the warnings posted all around.

The Shortest Commencement Speech Ever!

     Well the lists are out on the "top" college and university commencement speakers and once again just about all of those speakers are die-hard liberals. I was in attendance of a graduation commencement a week ago Friday and the message from the speaker was, in essence, encouragement to seek employment with the United Nations if you really wanted to be on the forefront of service to peoples of the world.
     Once again, another year has passed and I wasn't invited by anyone to be their commencement speaker. So I dreamed a dream and in that dream a very fantastical thing happened. Joe Biden was to be the commencement speaker at the University of Pennsylvania (which he is to be) but a couple of his hair plugs fell out at the last minute and he refused to go on stage. The Ivy League school administrators were frantic in trying to find a replacement. When they heard my name, Special Dog, they thought I must be a rap singer and thus eminently qualified to give a commencement speech.......then I woke up. So I sat down  and penned the speech that I would have given had I in fact been invited as a commencement speaker...anywhere, and here it is.......ahem!

      Well this is it!  Four years....a hundred thousand dollars in debt.....and all you got is a piece of parchment and a t-shirt saying "I survived four years of American higher education." I just want to say one word to you. Just one word....plastics!  Actually that's a quote, one of the top 100 film quotes by the way, from the 1969 movie The Graduate.
      I'll start my real advice with a little history...the "last official words" of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy!  The magazine sized book published in 1964 that most everyone has seen... Four Days, The Historical Record Of The Death of President Kennedy, described it this way, "These were President Kennedy's last official words-the conclusion of the speech he was to have delivered in Dallas."  That speech ended with these words, "...the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain'." That Bible excerpt is the last half of the 1st verse of Psalm 127... from the King James Version, which begins with this "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."
     So I pass these words on to you in this commencement speech as encouragement, President Kennedy's last official words, for they are the only truly reliable words that I will speak: Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!

     Now you will be going out trying to find a job...maybe you already have one lined up.....please remember...Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

      You finally have that degree....it will be worthless if you forget.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

      Whatever your degree is in.....it must now be built upon this....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

      You might already have a position at the biggest law firm in New York City.....God's Word reminds you.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!

      You're already an expert at investing and have great plans for your portfolio.....is this the title of that portfolio...Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it?

      You're patient and willing to work your way up....good traits, but keep in mind...Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

      You just might want to work to build peace....but remember this.... Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

      You might want to protect the environment .....if not for the glory of God your efforts will be in vain, for.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!

      This may be the shortest commencement speech ever given but one does not have to be a PHD, or a celebrity, a statesman, general or financial wizard to relay God's wisdom to graduates......

"Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

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 This is my Lord's Day offering...a post from October of 2009. I wanted to keep on the topic of college. I'll leave it up for only a day.


         I'm an incurable pack rat. My wife came up to me yesterday with a gray disk, about the size of a silver dollar and wanted to know if I knew what it was. It was slightly beveled and had little holes throughout. I had no idea what it was and she was about to throw it away. What! Wait a second. If we throw this out, there will be a day, when I need a disk about the size of a silver dollar, slightly beveled with little holes throughout. She'll never learn. Just throw the thing out and don't ask me about it.
          I have in my hands, well actually I'm typing but I have here in front of me a book that I bought from the National Record Mart in the winter of 1973. Its title is Reach Out, The Living New Testament (illustrated.) It was published by Tyndale and I paid $2.95 for it. It has just a little bit of commentary in it and was aimed at young adults. I showed up at church services in Vietnam when in a solemn and introspective mood but the thought of church never entered my mind during my last 7 months at Fort Bragg . I started at Pitt in January of 1973. It was a heady time. I read constantly, occasionally even textbooks from classes that I was supposed to be reading. I would take my latest book into the college bar and my friends and I would discuss philosophy or some other subject that we were interested in, until I could no longer pronounce my words. That's when my genius really came out.
         I remember one night particularly well. We were discussing The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. Here was a UCLA anthropology grad student taking lessons from a Yaqui Indian shaman on how peyote was instrumental to understanding the mysteries of life. We were absorbed in this while unaware that a couple of quarts of Budweiser did the same thing. In between this nonsense I would occasionally show up at St. Paul's Cathedral. It would be almost a decade before God opened my eyes and I could see the marvel of the gospel and the majesty of His Son, but I had a taste in 1973.
          Sometimes I open this book up and press the pages to my face, smelling them and imagining how that word Jesus would thrill me before I even understood. I'll read a few verses from this paraphrased translation, for it not a true translation, and be transported back for only a moment. And only a moment is what I would want for I was lost. I was in love with me and only the grace of God kept me from facing Him until a time when He would use the words of the Bible as a mirror where I would see only corruption. There are so many mysteries that will be explained to us when this life is done but none to me as impenetrable as why God opened my eyes. If you are firm in your decision to reject God, and you want a good excuse to bolster your case, just think of me. If God would redeem me, then there is no fairness in the world. And don't listen to the voice on the other shoulder that says If God would forgive me, then there is hope for you also. And whatever you do, don't open His book!

Shrinking Sidelines!

          It amazes me, and then it doesn't...two almost entirely different peoples within America, one... flawed certainly but traditional.....patriotic...God-fearing; the other moribund as to discernment.... progressive....metropolitan....international....almost anti-American as American has always been known, and God-rejecting, unless one fashions a god as one might attractively depict themselves with liberality on their Facebook page. And yet examples of two opposite peoples within a nation litter recorded history....... Christian pastors may someday soon have to either choose between proclaiming a government sponsored god or preaching the Gospel in the open fields. Where do you stand?

This from December of 2011:

    How are we to explain it? At one moment the people were laying palm branches before the approaching colt that carried Jesus into Jerusalem, shouting "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," and only a few days later they shouted "Crucify, crucify him!" Or were they the same people? Luke describes the first as his "disciples," and the second as the "chief priests, rulers and the people." Is this not the dichotomy of the people of this world from that day to the present? I remember watching an awards ceremony (probably the Tonys) on television in the mid-eighties where there were two musical performances, one after the other, that effected me enough to recall and relate it many times since. My memory on the specifics is not that clear but I do remember a gospel themed performance from a large choir. Certainly it must have been related to one of the nominees. It was a powerful ensemble performance and the audience was enthusiastic in its response. Then came the second performance. What I remember about it was the very wild theme as if from a Mardi Gras or a Brazilian festival. Again, the power of the music was displayed and the audience responded in kind. I felt that I had witnessed a spiritual battle right before me on the television screen. It astounded me that two themes of such opposite polarity where presented next to each other. Certainly, some cheered only for the gospel ensemble, others cheered only for the wild festival-like performance, while still others cheered for both, oblivious to the clash of messages. Who may have won that battle...I don't know, but it became etched in my own mind. Not all Christians are consumed with passion for knowing Christ, nor awestruck by the majesty and radiance of the Risen Lord nor do they cling to His Word as more valuable than gold and more precious than pearls, but many do. Not all of those that are lost and unredeemed grit their teeth in hate at the mere mention of Jesus Christ, but some do, while the lukewarm in the middle are often confused as to what all the fuss is about. The Israel of the Old Testament either sang praises and danced to its God or they killed the prophets sent by Him. Even today, we are conflicted not only between nations, but within nations, even at times within ourselves. There is no safety in trying to avoid the battle between God and those who oppose Him. The only safety is in shouting salvation and glory and power belong to our God!... to the only righteous king... and the only true God!

Stonewall Jackson.........Stonewall DeMint

          A few days ago a friend asked me why I haven't been saying too much about the government shutdown. My response was that the main problem we faced at that time was the establishment class of the Republican Party. The past few days proved out that thought. Just yesterday I was in the car and turned on the Mark Levin Show. Mark was interviewing Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson who assumed office in 2011 in no small part due to Tea Party endorsements. It was somewhat of a contentious interview because of Senator Johnson's recent votes on the attempt to defund Obamacare. At one point the Senator referred to the questioning as an inquisition. I wondered how it was that he considered himself above critical questioning. In July of 2010 Ron Johnson was endorsed for the Senate by Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund. When those Republican challengers won their elections Jim DeMint sent a letter to them warning them the establishment elite in the Senate would try to bring them under their control. The pressures put on Senators by the godlike party leadership must really be intense. Personally, I don't know if we can make it to the 2014 elections without national catastrophes. We have no leadership in this nation to speak of. Having long since rejected God, He has left us to our own devices. The following post is from earlier this summer:

Press On

        This past Saturday my wife and I had a nice afternoon at a county fair in Ohio and on the way home I put in the CD of the month from R. C. Sproul's Ligonier Ministry. He was telling of the marvel of raising children which included a little story of one time when he was carrying his grandson around his living room and naming objects on the wall and having the little boy repeat the words. He laughed as he told this and I certainly laughed along with him but for a different reason as he pointed to a picture on the wall and said very slowly Stone...wall...Jack...son. I looked at my wife.... finally vindicated! I was not the only person to have a painting of Stonewall Jackson on the wall!  You would have to know a little bit about this great general and modest, humble and dedicated Christian to know where I'm coming from. If you can't get past the confederate aspect of this you may indeed not understand. Let me give you one small anecdote that characterized his entire life:
         Mrs. Jackson tells the story. The first battle of Manassas or Bull Run was over and the people of Lexington, Virginia were anxious for news. The mail came in and the people all gathered around to hear the facts. A Letter was handed to the Rev. Dr. White who "immediately recognized the superscription of his deacon soldier and explained to the eager and expectant group around him...'Now we shall know all the facts'." He began to read out loud, "My dear pastor, in my tent last night, after a fatiguing day's service, I remembered that I had failed to send you my contribution for our colored Sunday-school. Enclosed you will find my check for that, object, which please acknowledge at your earliest convenience, and oblige yours faithfully, T. J. Jackson." Around my neck as I write is a pendent and on the reverse side are the words...Press On. I had that made up because those were the words that Jackson would call out to his men...infantry...who were sometimes called his...foot cavalry...for they moved steady, sure, and fast. But Stonewall Jackson is not the topic of this post, not directly anyway.
         The Republican Establishment has numerous generals but no Jacksons...no Lees...no Chamberlains....no Grants... no MacArthurs and no Pattons!   Those few true leaders out there oppose the current Republican leadership that is lackadaisical, insincere and impotent. I'm reminded of another anecdote as I write, this time about Oliver Cromwell. I've never seen this in print, only in the film Cromwell that starred Richard Harris and Alec Guinness. Lord Manchester led the Parliamentary forces early in the English Civil War. The film depicts him as indecisive and timid with Cromwell extremely unhappy with the lack of resolve, vigor and determination. Cromwell confronts Manchester with words that are probably different than what I remember but the message was the same "Manchester, we are going to defeat the king's army even if we have to go through you first!"
         We have our Jacksons and our Cromwells. Jim DeMint is one, Rand Paul another, Ted Cruz another, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, are two of many more.  Should the Lord have mercy upon America and extend our republic for a time, we are going to have to go through the establishment elites. What we will probably find is that they will take trick after trick from the Democrat's playbook. I don't expect honesty, rather pure power politics. They have proven themselves self-serving, grossly indecisive, all too often condescending to us and everything but prostrating themselves before those they claim to vigorously oppose. Their arguments will be persuasive to many for they are tried and appear true, having been given to us so many times through so many elections.
         These are not mere problems that we face in America. If they were this would not necessarily be the path that we have to go; and this path also will lead to certain defeat if we think that we can do it without first seeking God's mercy, fortitude and guidance. That is the way it has always been. George Washington knew it to be true as did Abraham Lincoln. The question to be answered is...do we?

Highly recommended:
Gods And Generals (film)
Stonewall Jackson, The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, by James L. Robertson Jr.
Cromwell (film)

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...and this post from a few weeks ago:

Usually, when I go four or five days without a new post it's because I have been down with something and such was the case again this time. There was a blessing though, as there also usually is, in that I could just lay there and listen to most of Senator Ted Cruz's 21 hour and 19 minute speech, or filibuster if you will, to Senate seats...and to America. It was not only American history being written, it was one of the great oratorical stands in our history, a history with the likes of Patrick Henry. I don't know if we have time to right this ship of state. If I were to guess it would be that we do not, that our presumption upon God's longsuffering with our rebellion has long since reached its limit, for His judgments upon us have already started, the greatest being that more often than not we cannot even distinguish good from evil nor right from wrong let alone choose between the two.
          If....God will have mercy upon us, then the last few days may have been a beginning in the political arena, for a great statesman, and a few other stalwarts,  have emerged out of a cesspool of ethical and intellectual delinquency...the United States Senate. If God's hand is indeed stayed then you may one day proudly look back upon what our House of Representatives and handful of Senators are attempting and say something such as "I remember those days....I was there!" To those of you outside of the United States, and there are quite a few who visit this blog, you are witnessing somewhat of a second American revolution, the rebels being.... freedom and liberty loving patriots with a reverential fear of Almighty God, needing only the heat of the cauldron turned up for the dross of our past sins to rise to the top leaving us dripping in the sweat of pure humility while seeking mercy and forgiveness. Whether we rise or fall, the hold of the Republican Establishment Class is broken and though when all is said and done that they may win here, there will someday be, should God will it, another crossing of the Delaware, and they and their political consultant class of mercenaries will lose that hold that stifles participation in our republic and fails to defend or even warn.
         Lastly, the censure, ridicule and recriminations towards Senator Cruz continue but the spell is broken. The more that they lambast good men and women, the louder and clearer they tell Americans that though they failed time and again over decades, though they long ago gave up trying, though they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage.... that they can cut the legs out from men like Ted Cruz but will find that he still towers over them on his knees and they can attempt to demoralize us but will find that a....plain, russet-coated Captain will not bow before the rostrum of elitism. I bring this older post back to explain the previous sentence:
        


plain, russet-coated Captains........Redux!

       .......A much more likely scenario for myself and others would be to work for principled true Republican conservatives for Congress and a third party candidate for the White House.  This pitched battle that is just commencing between Conservatives and Royalists is not a chance encounter. It has been brewing for many years and the Republican Establishment, or Royalists as I like to call them, have taken advantage of us, their base, time after time. They launched a volley this week announcing that 100 Republican donors, mostly gentlemen I presume, signed on to their cause. I gave this quote by Oliver Cromwell before but it seems extraordinarily apropos today: "I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else." Here is the situation. As it stands now we could not win the presidency with a third party candidate but if America does not experience a reformation and a great awakening... then even winning both houses and the Oval Office would do nothing to stop the hemorrhaging. On the other hand should Americans return to the God who gave them their very existence, all the money in the king's purse could not help Karl Rove. Should God will it, the numbers will be there in abundance, both in 2014 and 2016! That is, should He will it that we even make it that far as a nation unscathed and unbroken.
   

Yelling "Free Will" At A Lynyrd Skynyrd Concert

        
      The following is my Lord's Day offering originally posted in July of 2010:

         Saturday's Wall Street Journal highlighted an article by Jane Goodall on her life among the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. It was touching, but there was one glaring error as the anthropologist looked upon these wonderful creatures as being our common ancestors from six million years ago whereas our ancestors were, one created man and one created woman, only six thousand years ago. This creation... us... has a free will. Martin Luther wrote a book and Johnathon Edwards, two hundred years later, wrote another with titles that seem, at first glance, to be saying something opposite of each other but Luther's Bondage Of The Will proclaims the same thing that Edward's Freedom Of The Will does.
          German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer concentrated on man's will. To him it was when one man's will did not coincide with another man's will that suffering ensued. Desire was the problem and denial the answer. Schopenauer claimed to be an atheist and talked often as would a Buddhist. I cut out a Bizarro comic that might address this, an Eastern monk kneels before his teacher and says what do you do when you have freed yourself of all desire except the desire to be free from desire. Third Reich filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's historic work Triumph Of The Will deifies the will and the object of it, and the consequences of that are in our history books.
         When a Christian enters the debate a genuine conversation on free will may come up, and the challenges pour in over the Christian's claim that a free will does exist but so does a fallen nature that determines what that free will chooses. Chief among these arguments might be If such is the case...why bother to try at all and If such is the case then God is unjust. I think that you have to step back a little bit and consider this, Are you a person...do you exist? Is it a silly question? No, for if you acknowledge that you are an individual...and also that God exists...there has to be either a relationship, or a broken relationship. Who determines that relationship, the creature or the Creator? Well, if it's the Creator, He's telling you that you are the culprit but He has provided a way. One might then say hold on, I'm not the culprit! If you deny culpability...how can you then complain about the method God has designed for forgiveness, for you have rejected his premise to begin with? Why do you barter over the cost of a car that you have no intention of buying? Address the first issue and you will be surprised how little challenge there is to the second!
         If you truly had an unimpinged free will and consequently have no problem with rejecting the God that does exist, would it not have been better to have had a fallen free will and forced to depend, not on an intellectual decision of perceived truths or your own righteousness, but on a merciful Savior who has already promised forgiveness for coming to Him in sorrow for your sins and faith alone in His ability to redeem you?
         So to recap, if you do not have the ability to have faith in God without His intervention (free will and a fallen nature) then God is unjust; but if you do have the free will yet freely reject Him, He is not unjust? When God commands everyone to believe in His Son and one refuses to, it is not the evidence of a choice as much as it is the evidence of a fallen nature! Man already has a choice but also a fallen nature so to demand of God a choice is not necessary, but a plea for forgiveness from sins emanating from that fallen nature is never turned down! It is not one's choice to seek forgiveness even though one does. It was God's choice to intervene! Is He to be called unjust for this....for overcoming your fallen nature through the power of His Holy Spirit?
         Would you really rather to have not existed at all? There is an infinitesimal number of people.....who could have been.... but were never created therefore never existed. The ratio of created souls to souls never created would also be infinitesimal. Would God not then have to be infinitesimally fair and just to have created only those He has? Think of the innumerable multitudes that He never had to offer mercy, innumerable multitudes that would have rejected Him! Or is the injustice in that He has created you knowing you would have a fallen nature? But had He not created you, you could not call Him unjust for there would be no you. If just one soul is condemned, would that not, to some, be enough for a charge of injustice?  Then again, if everyone were to be given salvation, would not the ultimate injustice be in the existence of suffering in this life throughout the course of this world at the hands of multitudes with no threat of punishment? If God never had created, there would be no suffering...and no one to know that there is no suffering, but also no joy....and no one to experience the glory, majesty and righteousness, mercy and love of God who "gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (ESV) Is it possible that the origin of our claim that God is unjust really in that we do not know everything that He knows, and would this not be us, the creature, demanding to be as God, the Creator?
         What is the ultimate demand that you might give to God in order to absolve Him of the charge of injustice? If you eventually find God innocent of injustice, and He is taken out of the dock, might it not be wise to dwell on His goodness. The offer of forgiveness, adoption and redemption would then be seen, not as unjust, but as wonderful. This is undeniably a poor treatise on free will but I only hope to encourage you to reconsider charges of injustice towards God and ask yourself who rightfully lays the groundwork for salvation, you or God. 

         For resources on this topic that are infinitesimally better than mine visit www.ligonier.org 

Pirates.......and Barbarians

       As I write this the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team is about an hour into their first playoff game in over two decades. It's also a single game playoff between wild card teams, so this is it! There was a day, oh there was a day, when I would be pacing the floor with every pitch. It was much the same for football and other sports. I had my teams and I went from one sport to another and from one year to the next.
       The following is a very short synopsis of two of the topics I have written about in this blog over the years and there is a reason for me writing them here. On politics first...Barack Obama was a Manchurian Candidate and is a Marxist if not Communist plant in our office of President. I doubt if he has a single good feeling about America and for that matter any of the special interest groups that were conned into putting him into office. He is no friend to Israel and way too friendly to Israel's enemies...and our enemies. He has continuously ignored our Constitution, lied all along the way while he golfed and partied his free time away, which was considerable.
       Let me move on to.....the church.....in America.  Only God knows what a graph of the spiritual health of the church in America would look like but what we can know is that today's church would be on a very low, if not the lowest point. It thinks that it is healthy...naturally....Laodicean churches always do, but it is not. It is a lack of knowledge and a lack of shepherds and not a lack of care that ails it. It desperately needs to turn inwards to find what its moorings were once tied to, moorings broken away from in this postmodern fog covering all of America.
       OK, these are two very strong statements. Why do I believe them where you probably do not? I'm not smarter than you nor am I a better Christian. It's closer to the fact that I don't have a concern in the world what happens in that Pirate game tonight. It's not that baseball is bad for anyone for it isn't....it's that sports, and many-many other things, can kill one's discernment. Do the folks in that stadium tonight realize that their nation is collapsing, that barbarians are not only at the gate but within the walls and have been handed positions of authority? If they did then they would know that their children's lives and happiness are in extreme jeopardy! Oh they might still be at the game for various reasons, and many humbled Christians probably are, but it would be scheduled into a daily regimen, with a shedding of tears and rending of garments, of continuous prayer and studying to seek discernment on why we are where we are as a nation and a church and to plead God's mercy upon us.
       One last comment, a comment I have made before... if I could not express my thoughts in a different way than most others who hold to the same beliefs that I do then there would be no purpose in a blog like this. Others can do the theology better and there are numerous resources in print and on radio where one can hear the same warnings. So I bring up the Pittsburgh Pirates. Maybe someone takes offense at it but then maybe, just maybe, they might consider the thoughts I tried to convey here and reapportion their time, talents and efforts to God's glory!