".....Make Your Calling And Election Sure...."

         I don't know how to describe it other than 'eerie'. I'm talking about the news. I have been through many election year campaigns before but never one such as this where what seems like the entire world is reeling just as the campaigns come to a close. The enormity of what is being predicted on the immigration amnesty front is hard for even someone like myself to comprehend. Is there any difference at this point in time between the United States and your average run-of-the-mill third world dictatorship? Is this administration actively seeking the destruction of Israel? Is it purposely fomenting urban riots? Does it even care about Ebola? Does it have any enemy on this earth other than truth?
         Any stability that we might have had in the past six years has vanished, yet most conservative news sources seem bewitched by this election, as if the world stands still and a temporary truce is called; yet our problems in this country are so severe, our defenses so porous, our discernment so feeble, our resolve so short-sighted, our fear of God so non-existent that no election could stem the tide of this approaching tsunami.
         There is no 'corner to turn' out of a whirlwind. One must somehow land safely, for land they eventually will. If our enemies, and they are legion, do not attempt to seize this moment, this window of opportunity that they have in the Obama administration or in our entire government's rejection of dependence upon the Christian God in favor of its own perceived superiority, then they will have shown themselves as paper tigers, and paper tigers they are not. Neither Russian or China wants to see America have the hegemony that we once had. Islamic fundamentalists know that we are weakened, that we fear the Bible much more than we fear them. Communism, in its resurrected assemblage, knows that we detest the memory of Joe McCarthy much more than that of Joseph Stalin. We refuse to protect our own children from the corporate predators of social media, or even invesitgate the concerns of many, therefore there must be nothing we will protect.
          It's not the results of this election that I am concerned about even though I do support genuine God-fearing candidates, but rather what would happen after we do hit rock bottom and collapse as a nation, overthrown because of our greed and narcissism? Will we then see that God had removed His hedge around us and that is why this had happened to us, and will we then finally humble ourselves before Him and seek His mercy; or will we sink into anarchy and follow any Hitler or false Christ displaying miraculous signs and lying wonders? I know the answer to that as it stands right now. We would do the latter! What I don't know is whether God would intervene. Would He have mercy upon our foolish hearts one more time?
          This coming election could only be significant if we were in fact seeking God-fearing leaders and that is obviously not happening! There are some, I mentioned that, but we are most concerned with making a Republican victory sure!  Would it not be wiser to heed Peter's inspired words in  "Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble." 2 Peter 1:10
       

Aaaah.......Tabletalk!

This post is from June of 2010:

         There was a movie a few decades ago, a comedy, where a man was trying to impress a young lady who was very cultured. Advice given to him was that if the topic of classical music came up, just say Aaaah...Bach and that may get him by. If Old English Heroic Epic Poetry is ever brought up to me in a conversation, I may just say Aaaah...Beowulf.  I read Beowulf in high school. It was a great learning experience. I learned how to read thousands of words straight through and not understand a single thought they conveyed.
         I once held a fancy for a young lady in college who was very cultured, in fact she taught Theater Arts 101 as a grad student. This may have been the beginning of my actually... studying....for I signed up for the class and devoured the textbook to impress her. I even took an acting class and went to plays....Aaaah...Moliere!  The peak of my impressing her was when I cleared up a long standing mystery at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. We were working there for a few weeks, actually just rummaging through the stored old materials of the historic Playhouse for anything that the Pitt library's Special Collections could use. During a tour of the building I correctly identified King Edward VIII out of a dozen characters in an old Hirschfeld mural, an answer that had up to then eluded even the director. This young lady looked at me in amazement and said..."You're Smart!" But alas, I'm not cultured. I guessed correctly for I knew it was either the king, later the Duke Of Windsor, or Dagwood Bumstead....Aaaah Blondie!  I'd rather go to a Three Stooges marathon than a ballet. I read everything I had to through high school, but I didn't really read it. But I've since had a metamorphosis, Aaaah...Kafka!  
         Reformed theologian, pastor and teacher R. C. Sproul, through his Ligonier Ministries, publishes a monthly devotional/Bible study called Tabletalk, the name taken from Martin Luther's work of the same title. This booklet comes to our house early so I'm usually a little bit ahead of schedule. Today I was reading the July 15th offering and the Bible verse to be considered was Joshua 1:8, This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous.  
         R. C. wrote in the commentary that authentic meditation...is not some exercise wherein we try to empty our minds and expunge all desires in order to achieve some kind of mystic experience or melding with the transcendent. What he is directing us to is a pondering and a considering of the scripture that we read.
         Many years ago, a friend commented to me in a bit of theological debate, that he had read the entire Bible...cover to cover. I can only hope that he got more out of it than I did with Beowulf. Just this past Friday, another friend volunteered the information that he was reading the Bible every morning. He seemed reticent to say that he only read a little bit every day and had to think hard on what he was reading. I was stunned for he was reading it in the most beneficial way! (This friend finished reading the Bible just this past summer!)
         We have a tendency today to think that merely passing the words from our eyes and through the brain permits the reading requirement to be checked off. For an analogy, consider a time when you had a significant problem in some area of your life and you meditated on it throughout the day, trying to find and answer. You might re-read, over and over again, the letter you received in the mail detailing the problem. There are books that I fly through and others that I devour every letter of every word. Pilgrim's Progress is one, and I have often meditated on the various parts of Christian's journey and the people that he met along the way. Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th century English preacher, wrote that he read Pilgrim's Progress 100 times! C. S. Lewis wrote, "I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once."
         R. C. Sproul concluded his comments on this with We meditate on Scripture not simply to fill our minds with knowledge, but to prepare ourselves to act rightly even when the text is not before us.  If you are new to reading Scripture, as my friend was, ponder over what you read and meditate over the implications in your own life. If you need help with this, and we all do, go to www.ligonier.org and take advantages of their resources. And if someone mentions either R. C. Sproul or Martin Luther to you.....just say..."Aaah Tabletalk!"

Five English Reformers

        The following post is from April of 2010 and I bring it back here as a Lord's Day post:

         John Hooper was a bishop in the Anglican church during the reign of Henry VIII and the glorious reign of Edward VI. He lived through the beginnings of the English Reformation and struggled, preaching often three and four times a day, against the forces that worked against the Gospel. He was burned at the stake for his faithfulness in 1555 during the reign of Queen Mary. He is attributed with writing this poetry with a piece of coal on the wall of his jail cell:

Content thyself with patience
With Christ to bear the cross of pain;
Who can or will recompense
a thousand-fold, with joys again.
Let nothing cause thy heart to fail:
Launch out thy boat, hoist up thy sail,
Put from the shore;
And be thou sure thou shall remain
For evermore.

Fear not death, pass not for bonds,
Only in God put thy whole trust;
For He will require thy blood at their hands,
And thou dost know that once die thou must,
Only for that thy life if thou give,
Death is no death, but amens for to live.
Do not despair;
Of no worldly tyrant be thou dread;
Thy compass, which is God's Word, shall thee lead,
And the wind is fair.

         Rowland Taylor was a pastor during the same period and was called to account as a villain for preaching the Gospel. When friends advised him not to report, his response was: What will ye have me do? I am now old, and have already lived too long, to see these terrible and most wicked days. Fly you, and do as your conscience leadeth you. I am fully determined, with God's grace, to go to the Bishop, and to tell him, to his beard, that he doth naught. God shall hereafter raise up teachers of His people, which shall, with much more diligence and fruit, teach them than I have done. For God will not forsake, His church, though now for a time He trieth and correcteth us, and not without just cause. Rowland Taylor was also burned at the stake.

         Bishop Hugh Latimer wrote: My wish is, that men may write on their hearts that the well-being of England depends not on commerce, or clever politicians or steam, or armies, or navies, or gold, or iron, or coal, or corn, but on the maintenance of the principles of the English Reformation. Before being burned at the stake he turned to another martyr and famously said: Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

         In 1552 John Bradford wrote of those days as those is the days of Noah, often forwarning the people of the plagues which would be brought to pass. He also was martyred and wrote: When I consider the cause of my condemnation, I cannot but lament that I do no more rejoice than I do, for it is God's verity and truth.
 
         Nickolas Ridley was a chaplain to Henry VIII and later the Bishop of London and also ran afoul of Queen Mary for preaching the Gospel. In a farewell letter to prisoners he wrote: Farewell, dear brethren, farewell! And let us comfort our hearts in all troubles, and in death, with the Word of God: for heaven and earth shall perish, but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.

         I write these things as encouragement to myself as well as anyone else. These stories come from a small paperback book published by Banner Of Truth titled Five English Reformers written by the great 19th century English Anglican preacher J. C. Ryle. We have to know what transpired in the past that secured our blessings and liberties today. We ignore the sacrifices of others to our own peril. How trivial are the entertainments of today when compared to the blood, sweat and tears and most of all the faithfulness of those who came before us.

The Late, Great USA?

      We don't know the exact dates for the writing of the Old Testament books of Jonah and Nahum but a rough estimate might be that they were written 150 years apart. Most people are more familiar with how Jonah eventually relayed God's warning to the great city of Nineveh. That warning being that they had forty days to repent or be overthrown. Nineveh did repent and God postponed judgement. Nahum's message to Nineveh was an entirely different one.....God's judgement was imminent.......there was to be no forty days and no offer to repent this time.
        It would take a whole book to describe what America went through during our Civil War and a far greater talent than I have to do it. I long ago lost track of how many times I have visited Gettysburg. As I write this there are two new books on Stonewall Jackson sitting on the table next to me. One chapter from the short novel I wrote fifteen years ago (available to read at isaaccrockett.blogspot.com) takes place as the main character visits the battlefield. There were large revivals in both the North and The South during that war and we did survive as a nation but the downward slope away from God began again after the dust had settled, and we are almost exponentially more rebellious of a people today than we were in the 1850s.
        A little over forty years ago the Christian community in America was awakened once again as to God's warnings to not only us but the entire world. These warnings were only in bits and pieces and much of it contained error in the specifics but much of it was also very sound and straightforward. Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth was significant in that it set the stage for multitudes to begin to think about the literal judgement of God upon a wicked world. Billy Graham's 1985 Approaching Hoofbeats: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was significant in that it was based on warnings rather than speculations as in it he wrote of those hoofbeats....."They come as a warning, and grow louder by the day." Today those hoofbeats sound like steel hoofs clamoring over giant copper cymbals.
        In my personal opinion I can see four very specific and very egregious evolutions if you will in our rebellion against Almighty God. In the first we legislated God out of our schoolrooms. Our children would now not only be prohibited from reverencing God in their education but God would be outright ridiculed by many authority figures in their lives. In the second we were given the right through Roe v Wade to destroy our children in the womb before they could impinge upon our lifestyles simply by being born, Third, we turned the children over to the merchants and profiteers, many of them unscrupulous and some predators, almost totally free of oversight as to how their products would affect the children and ultimately affect society through a generation raised on instant gratification and self-esteem. Fourth, the subterfuge of same-sex marriage is viewed as compassion and fairness rather than what it really is, a bold final assault on our children's belief in God! Many polls show the effectiveness of the deceit, not only by the mainstream liberal churches but much of evangelicalism itself. We are choosing politics, our paychecks, our pensions and our entertainments.......over our children and over God's commands.
        The warnings to us were always there in God's Word but they appeared in a different medium four decades ago with almost as shocking an affect as did a stomach acid bleached prophet of God.... vomited out of a giant fish, but Jonah's appearance would pale in relation to the message given by Nahum of certain coming judgement. I encourage you to read these three short chapters of the Book of Nahum and meditate upon what God had done before. If it does unnerve you, there is always the seventh verse of the first chapter to cling to...."The Lord is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows who trusts in Him."

Sermon In A Bottle

       As I mentioned before in these posts, we are beach people. I saw the ocean for the first time when I was in basic training in 1969 at Fort Dix, New Jersey. My cousin drove up to Fort Dix with her husband from Maryland, picked me up on a Sunday afternoon, and took me to the shore for a nice lunch.
        I don't know if my wife and I every missed a vacation at the beach in 38 years and we even honeymooned at Cape Cod. So our son had plenty of beach time also. I started a tradition with him when he was real young, one that I continue with my wife today. We would buy a few of those little bottles half-filled with sand and tiny sea shells at one of the boardwalk shops, put a gospel message of some sort in, and then throw them in the surf. The last time I did this was about three weeks ago at Ocean City, New Jersey. Only today I put the URL of this blog in the bottle along with the sand and sea shells. There are probably some of those bottles from twenty-five years still floating around.
       

Sermon In A Bottle.......March of 2014

         I received a letter in the mail today from a former pastor. Yes, I said the mail. I've written about him in the past but in a forum like this, old posts can be lost forever. That's why I bring back posts so often or write often on the same men and themes and times and ages. He's about my age, this pastor friend.... 66 to my 64, but he's much older than that, almost 400 years older. He was our pastor for about ten years. Our son grew up in the second pew in front of his preaching.
         He wore a preacher's robe in the pulpit and spoke softly but passionately with just a slight trace of a stutter on occasion. In conversation he always paused before offering an opinion or answering a question. I just sat and looked at the letter for a while with a smile on my face before reading it. It was cursive writing, barely readable, on what looked to be note paper from a small notebook. There was a second paper in the envelope, actually six pages, they were typed...on a typewriter, on what must have been a very old one at that. It was a sermon preached a few months ago. The type was very light and every so often a letter was missing. I doubt if this man has ever punched a key on a computer.
          I was in full memory mode, sitting in that pew and looking up to the pulpit as he turned the same folded pages. I could see from the pew that sermons were written on the back of some paper he must have had lying around the house. Such a simple man is he.....simple yet highly learned and profound. It was the same today. The back of the paper was a receipt from a Christian book dealer! Some things never change....and I'm so very glad for that.
          I said that he was much older than 66....almost 400 years older. Well, maybe that was a little bit of exaggeration....let's say 150 years older.......and from London........Charles Spurgeon's London and J. C. Ryle's London. I'll title this post "Sermon in a bottle" for it's as if his sermons could have been printed and tossed into the raging sea of this world many years ago. He preaches Christ....not the name....the Person. He's a fish out of water today. Let me take you back about a dozen years when we were part of his congregation. The church building probably goes back to the 1800s with white stone latticed together by orange stone of a Victorian church architecture but more importantly is its history. Renown Presbyterian scholar and pastor John Gerstner once filled it's pulpit. Add to this my former pastor and it should be a legitimate historic landmark to those who know Christ, who bow before His majesty, humble themselves before His holiness and exhaust themselves in praise to His goodness, mercy and love to us.
          I would enter the sanctuary on the Lord's Day morning in great expectation and hardly ever be disappointed. He presented Jesus Christ to us in all His majesty. We knew we were sinners and were glad to be reminded of it but joyful in being reminded also that we were redeemed. Very seldom could I even rise immediately after the sermon for I needed time to catch my breath.
He moved to the Midwest and eventually we moved to a church closer to home for it was about a forty minute drive. It's faithful men like this and books telling of more faithful pulpit ages that fashioned many of my posts on today's preaching. I'll add but a little bit of the sermon I received today that was filled with Scriptural proclamations of Jesus Christ and the answering of the question from Hebrews 2:3, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

          How great is our salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord. Is it great above anything, greater than everything, greatest of all things? How many more degrees of greatness can we add? The Bible employs this simple term which supersedes all degrees of greatness. "So great". The greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is unsearchable, incomprehensible, unspeakable........how great is the atoning sacrifice which Christ accomplished for us, to redeem us from our sins......who are we in Christ, what has happened to us, what is the momentous change, of so great a salvation in Christ.....we have undergone a change, greater than any other possible change--greater than from poor to rich, than from sick to well, than from danger to rescue.....for our great change in Christ is that we have been changed from death to life......Christ has delivered us, out from the power of death and darkness, and the devil; into his kingdom of power of life, of light, and of the salvation of Christ.....

Have They Already Begun

          The seventh chapter of Jeremiah begins with this: The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying "Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD!' " Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place, Do not trust in these lying words, saying 'The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.'
          John MacArthur called it a "self-deluding slogan." R. C. Sproul made mention that the phrase, repeated three times, certainly should call our attention to its importance. God gave Jeremiah the words to warn the people of Judah, for they thought, as MacArthur put it, that "the Lord would never bring calamity on his own temple." Have we in America deluded ourselves with just such an exemption, and incorporated a similar saying....God bless America, God bless America, God bless America?

The following blog entry is from 2011:

          How would we respond if we were asked what we thought God's opinion was of us and our nation; and what would we rate the possibility of there being impending terrible judgments upon us? It's a difficult question for the average American to even contemplate for we as a people are generally certain of only one thing in that area, that being that America will indeed continue to plug on either in good times or possibly bad times, but far removed from utter devastation that other countries and empires of old had experienced. It's not a trait peculiar only to Americans for every empire has felt itself somewhat invincible for a long time after its influence and power had peaked. We are enjoying the fruit of our productivity and liberty while oblivious to predators of that productivity and liberty.

          I worry about our youth. It's often said that every generation worries about its youth but I lived in those infamous 60s and even with the ascendancy of the drug and rock culture, the temptations were tame compared to the diversions that our youth of today have thrown at them. I had a Radio Shack Flavor Radio, a black and white television, a few balls of various shapes and sizes and a 110 pound set of weights to occupy my time. Television is far worse today, far more enticing with many more channels and an accompanying philosophy of life, society and politics that does anything but convey the belief systems that originally encouraged productivity and liberty.

          Even so, television is not the biggest culprit in our decaying society for the Internet dumbs us down to such a degree that we can ingest but not digest, and we can take in vast amounts of information but cannot analyze it or even categorize it for future use. Throw Facebook into the mix and we now have more than one generation who are emulating Narcissus of Greek mythology who looked at his reflection in a pool until he died. We continually update and gaze at that reflection on our Facebook page as that day of judgment nears, for we consider it unlikely that that judgment, should it actually materialize, would be anything more than an economic decline or the results of political bickering that divides and occasional prolongs far off wars.

          We accepted Darwin's flawed concept of the origin of man but this was not enough for God's mercy upon us to end. Our efforts to forbid public schools to have simple prayers to God began in 1962 but that was not enough either unless one takes into consideration the half century of chaos and violence our society has endured since then. We legalized the taking of life in the womb in 1973 which is estimated now to be 50 million lives but we still exist as a nation. Our latest offense may be our last in that in our haste to accommodate the gay agenda through same-sex marriage we would be, in effect, offering up the minds of our children in just about every area of their lives to what God very clearly calls an abomination. Personal opinion here, it is one thing to permit others in a free society to make choices that effects only themselves but an entirely different matter to validate those choices in impressionable minds to whom God gave express warnings not to lead astray.

          Having said this, it is not the gay agenda, or the liberal agenda or even the radical Progressive/Marxist/Communist agenda that should be our primary concern, for all of these emanate from the consensus of a people, or at the very least from the lack of vigilance. It is our own individual failures that led to such a consensus that we need to deal with. Do we even have any right at all to speak against America's profane dealings with God when we ourselves have added to that considerably over the years?

          The reality is that we indeed are a sinful people...dealing with our own individual sin as we struggle to lessen the temptations all around us that exacerbate that sin in ourselves and add to the decay of our culture. All the while we plead for and expect God's mercy but do we consider that we may have presumed upon that mercy for too long.

          The violence and imminent collapse of our nation should chill us to the bone, yet we continue to call what is good evil and what is evil good. As I have written often in this blog, no political or military solutions will cure us. They need to be addressed but only a sincere, individual and corporate humbling before our Creator can give us any hope for renewed mercy; and we are without excuse... for the evidence is all around us, if only we would look, that God's judgments have already begun!

Stark Contrast......Redux

        As I look over five and a half years of posts, most of them remain as relevant as if written today. Some indeed are topical but the central themes are the same.....America, prepare to meet thy God....America is in the midst of a coup.....social media dumbs down an already reality intolerant American mind.....the American Christian church believes itself to be healthy but it is mistaken.....to Europe and other nations of this world, if we lose this fight, you lose also.....and.... there is little difference between the establishment wing, or the the elites of the Republican Party and the Democrat Party, both of which truly serve only the secular ruling class of this world.
         As for the Christian posts and message....."they don't come any weaker or more unworthy than me".....today is the day for your salvation, not tomorrow......there is no more precious object on this earth, no more valuable possession, than that book gathering dust on the second shelf of your bookcase next to Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Danielle Steel or any one of such authors who you can read forty-five minutes every night before bed.....and.... the majesty, the power and the glory of Jesus Christ is such that the closer you get, the more you know your need of Him as both Lord and Savior, the more you see His righteous judgement, the more thankful you are for His mercy, and the more fleeting this world and its baubles appear!
         With this in mind, I'm attempting to bring back past posts, often for only a day.

Stark Contrast.....May, 2014

         Surely somewhere in America on that bleak or snowy Saturday in early December 1941 a young man sat looking out of a restaurant window, or maybe a coffee shop, with a young lady at his side who was his new bride. They had the world at their fingertips as he was just awarded that treasured college diploma he worked so long and hard for, and she wore the wedding band she had dreamed about since they first met in grade school. They looked into each other's eyes with hardly a care in the world. Oh, the plans they had so much fun making.....a small cottage with a white picket fence that someday would keep little ones and maybe a puppy dog from straying as they play.
          And then the morning came and as they walked into church the somber faces took their joy away for they had not heard the news from that group of islands where the sun shown year round and warm surf slapped the white beaches. America was in the war against evil that they had only given themselves minutes a day to reflect upon. The young bride knew immediately that their dreams would now be put on hold if they would ever come true. Surely the prayers of all present in that worship service were salted with tears.
          Not every generation has its hopes interrupted as this generation did on December 7th, 1941 but our young generation today may indeed be another one. Colleges and universities are having their commencement right about now and the hopes and dreams of many wearing mortar boards and gowns are exactly the same as the young couple that I described.
          I'm a news junky and the daily pain from the news of this world has made it such that I could never lose myself in plans or even hopes and dreams. Love is disappearing in the world....no.... worse than that, it has been hijacked by greed, tortured by pride and what is left is directed to ourselves and we in America are paying dearly for our dalliances.
          The 1943 Academy Award for Best Picture went to the 1942 American film Mrs. Miniver in which Greer Garson also won for Best Actress. It portrays the upper middle class Miniver family who live outside of London in a very nice home on the River Thames. I list this film as one of my favorites in my Profile for this blog.
          Life could not be sweeter for Mrs. Miniver and her family as she is smitten over an expensive new hat and her husband (Walter Pidgeon) outdoes her by purchasing a sporty new vehicle. Their eldest son has taken up the pipe at university and spouts his political views with heartfelt sincerity but naive certainty much like our youth today and very much like myself at that age. War looms on the horizon but is not taken seriously until England declares war on Germany. Life then changes for the family as their son goes off to war as their own home is damaged by bombs.
          There is a church scene at the beginning of the film and another at the end and the stark contrast of the two is the essence of the film. Americans would already have experienced the realities of war when the film came out and the intended purpose of the film was to rally the American public by showing them the courage and stamina of the British homefront in a war they had already been in for three years. Winston Churchill commented on the book and the film in that they did more for the war effort than a flotilla of battleships.
          I highly recommend the film for the essence, for we are in need of a reality check on what lies before us, and our congregations are in need of an extreme soberness in our worship services that would eliminate distractions and focus us solely on who we are there to worship.

Have You Had A Taste

         The following blog is from October 12th of 2009 and it's about my first taste of the Gospel:
 

Have You Had A Taste Yet?


         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 bevelled 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 bevelled 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 on the Pitt campus 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 we could no longer pronounce our 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 remembering 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 then 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 now 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 someone like me, then there is hope for you also. And whatever you do, don't open His book!

Social Media

         I've written a lot in these posts on social media and Facebook in particular and I do consider them both to be a blight upon the American people. Are there redeeming qualities in them? Possibly a few but naming them would almost be like saying that at least the first half of the Titanic's voyage was fun. Oh, I've heard the typical defenses such as it gives moms a chance to see pictures of their grandchildren every day but I think that mom might be wiser to be concerned about how her grandchildren are growing up rather than just seeing pictures of them!!!
        I have a lot of allies in this but came across another somewhat unlikely one recently in the children's music guru from the 70's and 80's....Raffi.....or Raffi Cavoukian. I say unlikely only because his other passions are not ones that I would necessarily share. You can read about them in Raffi's new book which I came across at a book convention of sorts. The title that I'm heartily recommending to you is....Lightweb Darkweb, Three Reasons To Reform Social Media Be4 It Re-Forms Us. I'm not nearly as optimistic on change as he is but very close to him in realizing the dangers that social media presents to our children.
          Some call them "Beluga Grads," children who grew up to the music of Raffi. If you are a parent of a young man or women in at least their twenties you probably knew his music geared to children. Our son might be called a "Bullfrog and Butterfly grad" for our main musician, Barry McGuire, was Christian oriented, but we are very familiar with Raffi Cavoukian also. 
          Social media has given us a generation with a smartphone either glued to their ear or in the palm of their hand as a divining rod as they walk along.  Raffi's book has numerous cover blurbs to offer, one of whom was from Nicholas Carr, the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist book The Shallows, What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brain, a book that I previously reviewed and is added on below this post. Raffi calls social media "a crises of epochal proportions" for young users primarily but one that effects adults also. He writes that our youth are growing up in two worlds...one real and the other virtual, a world he labels the iWorld.
          This world "alter(s) our sense of reality" and "affects our brains." He brings other experts into the discussion to support his case and challenges the opinions of opponents particularly Mark Zuckerberg whose Facebook he effectively takes to task for its effect on children. He writes, "An estimated 200 million under-17 users of Facebook and similar sites." Raffi will hit upon data mining, identity theft and even WiFi microwave radiation. He questions the fact that Facebook doesn't put one face-to-face with anyone and while admitting that there is not a whole lot of evidence on the topic that the evidence that does exist points to this being a "bad thing."
          Quoting a June 2011 Consumer Reports Raffi writes that "Of the 20 million minors who actively used Facebook, 7.5 million-or more than one third were younger than 13 and (they) are not supposed to be able to use the site," and also that 5 million of those were under ten. He writes that parents, even if they were willing, are not able to keep up with the changing technology to safeguard their children and wants us to rethink the value of online actively for these children. He writes about the negative effect on the formative intelligence of children and points here to the testimony of psychologists and teachers for evidence. Raffi admits that an accurate description of children overall today may not be one of being "mentally ill" but is also not one of being "mentally healthy."
         Raffi is an advocate of taking computers out of school and offers information from a New York Times story where various well-known tech corporation officers send their children to schools that are computer free! He argues that the tools offered in the computer world of cyberspace are of no use if the student cannot use the English language, nor dialogue, nor even reason. He follows the evolution of an idea that has gone astray and so far refuses to correct itself.
          It seems as if every few pages Raffi offers another area of our society that takes advantage of our children through our fascination with this new medium. He is passionately asking questions here and even offering advice to fix the problems, but how does one change the minds of those who are making enormous amounts of profits? Few walk away from such a lucrative career, and design plans for the future are actually seeking more children...and even younger children!

The Shallows.......November 2010

         Nicholas Carr begins and ends his book The Shallows, What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains with thoughts on HAL from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Dave, my mind is going...I can feel it. I can feel it" were the computer's last words as the astronaut disconnected circuits. Carr follows with... "I can feel it too. Over the last few years I've had an uncomfortable sense, that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory."
         Marshall McLuhan appears throughout the book with warnings from years ago that we would experience the "dissolution of the linear mind" and that we were "breaking the tyranny of text over our thoughts and senses." Carr says that he is no Luddite and points out that because of the Web, "research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes" but that this boon comes at a price for it "shape (s) the process of thought"
          His book gives us a history of the written word and dissemination of books throughout the world in general. Likewise there's a history of the computer, it's ever increasing use along with some fascinating anecdotes. He spends considerable time on the latest discoveries on the human brain, memory, the processes of learning and cognitive thought...all very readable for the layman. He also gives a caveat on social networking and  companies such as Google. 
          Since Gutenberg's invention, according to Carr, "the linear, literary mind has been at the center of art, science and society." The "heightened consciousness" of the elite in earlier times and most people in more literate times has devolved into computerized minds today that experience cognitive overload from the massive input of semi-related data which eliminates deep thought. Books once "enhanced and refined people's experience of life and of nature," writes Carr but this is being replaced by the shallows as the new technologies can displace but not replace the written word and linear mind. Carr details how his own normal  usage of the PC became a dependence upon it and its services. He (the author) had first been turned into a "human word processor" and then "something like a high-speed data processing machine, a human HAL," and laments "I missed my old brain" then set out on research that resulted in this book.
         We get a fair amount of history and philosophy, from Gutenberg's invention to Nietzsche's use of a typewriter prototype after he went blind but these are only morsels, for the main course is the human brain, how it functions and how it ultimately became dependent on the technology that it invented. We read thoughts on wisdom from Socrates and Aristotle to McLuhan and Henry David Thoreau. This topic isn't new to me and I've recommended Arthur W. Hunt's book The Vanishing Word, The Veneration Of Visual Imagery In The Postmodern World a few times. I recommend both books here but Hunt writes of God's design of the written word as a primary method of communicating with man, whereas Carr barely mentions the biggest selling and most powerful book, and source of all wisdom, the Bible. 
         I'm mentioned in the book! Well, not me personally but the millions of bloggers who "wield a keyboard like a magic sword, sending their thoughts into cyberspace." The statistics are there to prove his assertions that extreme computer usage tends to lowers intelligence. It may increase "knowledge" but neuters what intelligence can do with it.  Carr writes "The Net's cacophony of stimuli short circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively. Our brains turn into simple signal-processing units, quickly shepherding into unconsciousness and then back again....If our brains are computers, then intelligence becomes indistinguishable from machine intelligence."   Numerous experiments are referenced showing that the hypertext-laden usage of the Internet is producing that cognitive overload. 
          Carr writes.... "research continues to show that people who read linear text comprehend more, remember more, and learn more than those who read text peppered with links." He quotes a certain Rhodes Scholar who is "comfortable admitting not only that he doesn't read books but that he doesn't see any particular need to read them" and Carr cites a digital expert in that we have been emptily praising  great writers of the past. Carr asks "Why bother, when you can Google the bits and pieces you need in a fraction of a second." The Net is "making us smarter he writes only if we define intelligence by the Net's own standard."
          Carr explores the phenomenon of Social Networking but saves his greatest concerns for Google, "Google's Silicon Valley headquarters-the Googleplex-is the Internet's high church," he writes, and the religion that it practices is nothing more than long established theories on how to improve efficiency in industry transferred to efficiency in the circuitry of the mind. He quotes Google's CEO Eric Schmidt in that the company is "founded on the science of measurement" striving to systematize everything constantly seeking to refine algorithms to find meaning in our navigation of the Web, the "next best thing to actually being able to read (our) minds." Carr quotes Neil Postman in that "technical calculation is in all respects (deemed) superior to human judgement; that in fact human judgement cannot be trusted" and that "the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts." Carr writes "the last thing the company (Google) wants is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. Google is, quite literally, in the business of distraction." 
         Google, Facebook and others are in a constant competition to keep us distracted. The efforts to digitalize every book in the world is explored with the comments by some in government who were "suspicious of Google's motives, despite the altruistic rhetoric"...that... "when businesses like Google look at libraries, they do not merely see temples of learning...they see potential assets...ready to be mined." Another observer wrote that Google has become "a true believer in its own goodness, a belief which justifies its own set of rules regarding corporate ethics, anti-competition, customer service and its place in society" and that the real value of books in not in the "self-contained literary work" but in the "data to be mined." Carr enters the debate on artificial intelligence coming down solidly in that it will not happen but does warn that humans may indeed be transformed into computers. He quotes David Brooks of the New York Times in that he once thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more but came to realize that "the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less."
          A little bit of personal commentary here in that this is in no small way related to our voting patterns today. Our knowledge of national and international affairs comes from snippets of information garnered from television shows where hosts who speak in soundbites devoid of any deep meditation on any of the issues seem totally ignorant of accurate opposing views. And this is all that we want, for the pace of the Internet allows no contemplation. "Memory is outsourced" as David Books put it. Carr enters into this thought with evidence that memory is unstable for a brief period of time and the Internet is the perfect antidote for the development of long-term memory.
         Allow me another personal comment here in that the proclamation of the Gospel is also effected by the information age in that decisions for Christ are all too often mere hyperlinks in religious surf, just one more piece of data to be stored. The short-term memory of an altar call fails to plow deep in the mind and heart. This is why I concluded my short story, Seaman Murphy, from October 25th with John Cermak's refusal to lead Shane Murphy in the sinner's prayer. 
          Nicholas Carr sums up his theories in that it is becoming much easier for humans to operate computers...but also...."easier for computer networks to operate human beings." I want to add here Nicholas Carr's experience in writing this book for as he was without the Internet as he worked on it: "The dismantling of my online life was far from painless. For months, my synapses howled for their Net fix. I found myself sneaking clicks on the "check for new mail" button. Occasionally, I'd go on a daylong Web binge. but in time the cravings subsided, and I found myself able to type at my keyboard for hours on end or to read through a dense academic paper without my mind wandering. Some old, disused neural circuits were springing back to life, it seemed, and some of the newer, Web-wired ones were quieting down. I started to feel generally calmer and more in control of my thoughts-less like a lab rat pressing a lever and more like, well, a human being. My brain could breath again." Carr's brief sojourn in the Bible was profound in these verses:

Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of men's hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not;
eyes have they, but they see not;
They have ears, but they hear not;
Noses have they, but they smell not;
They have hands, but they handle not;
Feet have they, but they walk not;
Neither speak they through their throat;
They that make them are like unto them;
So is every one that trusteth in them.
        

Biblical Predictions.....Coincidence.....Or Something Else?

         I bring these three posts back because we have a blood moon coming up and one that is a part of what is called a tetrad which is explained below. Are the books Blood Moons, the Harbinger and the Shemitah biblical predictions of what is happening today or are they just coincidences because the world is indeed reeling out of control, America is spiralling downward and the relatively new state of Israel is in more danger than they have ever been in? I believe that they are neither but the concepts are biblical in that we know from the Bible that we as a people have a tendency to seek that which is not there and fail to see what truly is there.
          The following post is on Rabbi Cahn's new book The Mystery Of The Shemitah and following this are reviews on his previous book The Harbinger and the concept that several books are written on...blood moons. The majority of the church of today is in the doldrums. With little wind, we all, passengers and crew, pucker and blow into the sails at least once or twice a year and consider the sudden movement to be the work of God.
         I am a bibliophile. I love to read books. At times I like to...escape...in a book, and at other times I like to read books that speculate. What I hope never to do is to confuse enjoyment with learning for ultimately books are meant to teach.
         I read about Jonathon Cahn's follow-up book to The Harbinger... The Mystery of the Shemitah and went out and purchased it. In it he expands on one of the 'mysteries' mentioned in The Harbinger. A 'shemitah' is a biblical sabbatical year where the fields are to be fallow and debts are to be released. The word 'shemitah' means...release.
         Rabbi Cahn gives us well over 200 pages in his new book with numerous historical events that happened either at the beginning or the end or near the beginning or the end of a Shemitah year. We find great nations collapsing and others starting and many economic and Wall Street collapses in these years. Personally, I did not find the book edifying but rather profoundly tiring.
         Yes, there certainly was a seven year cycle in Israel and as Rabbi Cahn describes is somewhat recognized in Israel today, but there is something much more important that revolves around a cycle of seven....something written in stone....something essential to the church and individuals and also something lost in translation in this modern age....that would be Lord's Day, barely mentioned in Rabbi Cahn's new book that has the subtitle...The 3,000-Year Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future, The World's Future....And Your Future!
         The book does have historical content that is worth knowing, as well as biblical Jewish customs and Scriptures themselves but the theories are misdirected. One bullet blurb from the beginning of the book states "Is it possible that words of an ancient text are determining and controlling the future of the financial realm, the business realm, and the economic realm"" The answer to this is...no! Words determine nothing, rather the one who speaks the words. This seemingly minor peccadillo should be an alarm for when even sincere teachers of the Bible have erred in the past, they often have given life to the the theoretical and ascribed cause to the inanimate.
          I'll stop here because the following posts addressed the same problem.
    
The Harbinger

         Messianic Rabbi and author Jonathan Cahn sees an America that is in dire trouble. So do I. According to his popular book The Harbinger; September 11th, 2001 was a judgment upon America, a judgment with a lot of biblical meanings behind it emanating from Isaiah 9:10. Along with a judgment there is a warning to America to return to God or experience utter destruction.
         In his book, Rabbi Cahn takes what he sees as a very distinct, specific and detailed message for Israel in Isaiah, and applies it every bit as particularly to America. He presents this to us in story form, the story of a man and a modern day prophet. Thus Isaiah's prophesy to Israel, a prophesy of impending catastrophe, is being repeated with us...brick for brick, sycamore for sycamore and cedar for cedar, and will end with total collapse if we do not repent.
         Rabbi Cahn takes the reader step by step from the collapse of the twin towers to the rebuilding efforts since then and even well beyond that national disaster to the 2008 economic collapse and even back to the inauguration of George Washington. He sees us doing exactly the same thing that the Israelites did upon their first defeat at the hands of the Assyrians, that being... arrogantly proclaiming that they will merely rebuild while ignoring the reasons for God's hedge being taken down in the first place.
         The book would not have had the reception that it did if there were not a number of very interesting similarities that make it appear as if America is indeed written into the Isaiah prophesy right next to Israel. Some Evangelicals will believe the thesis of the book on face value. Others will criticize mixing newspaper headlines and Bible prophesy. I'm not concerned here with this aspect, important as it is. My concern is this: it seems as if every year there is one Christian book that consumes the evangelical community, for example, The Shack or Heaven Is For Real. It becomes the Christian's Super Bowl.....the big experience of the year. At best it's a waste of time and at worst, as in the case of these two books, it is unbiblical nonsense.
         The problems with this type of Christian culture vary. To simply read Rabbi Cahn's novel for enjoyment is one thing but we go well beyond that. The novelist, the television evangelist and the user-friendly mega-church become the teachers of pot luck theology and whats more, over time, we have become such that our minds learn mostly from the spectacular and the visual. We no longer analyze or examine. Neither are we learning through experience, rather through enjoyment. Has reading the book changed anyone? Or has it merely fulfilled a need embedded in today's Christian for the sensational? What it might do is prepare the unbeliever to view America's troubles in a different light but at what cost to the Christian.
         There was a wildly popular Christian novel published in 1986 written by Frank Peretti and titled This Present Darkness. Light reading over a few days is one thing but this book actually had Christians circling neighborhoods and praying away territorial spirits. The cover of Rabbi Cahn's book has the subtitle the Ancient Mystery that holds the Secret of America's Future. That America is abandoning God and faces His wrath should hardly be a secret to the Christian. A simple ploughman, if I might use that archaic term, knows that, as might even the flamboyant heretic reaching tens of millions through a television ministry. This book might be an urgent call to dinner but where's the beef? There is no meat in The Harbinger...none. Many Christians, myself included, saw 9/11 as a consequence of our rebellion to God and were sorely disappointed that we all, myself included, so easily and so quickly returned to the business at hand...money and trivialities!
         The Book of 1st Samuel, early on, tells of Israel's defeat at the hands of the Philistines. Along with the prophet Eli's two evil sons, Hophni and Phinehas, Israel calls for the Ark of the Covenant to be brought to the battlefield, for surely the presence of the holiest object in Israel would insure victory. It did...for the Philistines! Here then is another similarity, to me anyway, between Israel of the Old Testament and America; It's as if we are calling for the Ark when we proclaim America to be anything beyond a nation favored with blessings by God, for His purposes. Sometimes it's just presumption and other times it is total blindness on what is happening in America and why we are unravelling. It's possible to call on God in times of distress as if we were putting a talisman around our neck. Evidence of this distortion of prayer can be seen in many high profile teachers who not only totally misconstrue what the state of Israel is today but toss the Gospel of Jesus Christ out the window in attempting to save God's Chosen People. Let me conclude where I began, in agreeing with Rabbi Jonathan Cahn....America is departing from God....God's protection is departing from us.....and we could care less.

Blood Moons.......April/15/2014

          There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight. Lunar eclipses are not rare but when four consecutive total eclipses occur they are called a tetrad. Tetrads are relatively rare. The earth has gone hundreds of years without experiencing one yet five occurred in the 20th century. Tonight's will be the first total eclipse of a tetrad. The others will occur this October, next April and next October. What makes it even more interesting is that all four occur on Jewish feast days. North America gets the front row seat in tonight's Blood Moon as NASA has named them. It will not be visible in India or that whole part of the globe.
          There is a lot of speculation from Biblical prophesy teachers on the meaning of this tetrad. My concern with this speculation is that blood moons should not be necessary to warn us of our condition and that lunar eclipses are not the only events that can turn the 'moon to blood.' (Rev. 6:12)
          Billy Graham is credited with the quote but it was his wife Ruth who uttered it. The quote was "If God doesn't punish America, he'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." I believe that she must have said this in the mid-1980s. I don't know about the 'apologizing' part of her statement but her intent was correct. America's fall is near complete. Our rebellion against God is so extensive that we can no longer visualize what it was like to be a God-fearing nation.
          We have sacrificed tens of million of babies through legalized abortion. Those who are born into this world in this nation are deliberately herded away from God unless the parents forcefully intervene in the rustling of their children. This alone should be a call for America's demise. Not satisfied with the results of this attack, these powers that be have moved on to attacking marriage...the uniting of one man and one woman. If this tactic is successful all children will be forced to accept and live with, in just about every aspect of their lives, this frontal assault on God himself.
          God has consequently removed His hand of protection from us. He has given us leaders who are either undiscerning, totally incompetent or corrupt on one end or viscerally hateful of America's heritage on the other. Our fascination with....ourselves....has become a tragedy abetted by technology. Our idol craving culture has long since presumed too much of God's longsuffering towards us. We are drunken with our entertainments, staggering from one venue to the next. We no longer can analyze and live on statistics fed to us by universities that have become nothing but 'puppy mills' to a culture that needs only someone to buy its clothes and trinkets.
          Yes, there is a remnant of God-fearing Americans but even much of that remnant has lost discernment in this anti-intellectual abyss we have fallen into. Jesus was asked "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming and the end of the age?" His response can be found in the 24th Chapter of Matthew and includes this "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark....."
          The ark was safety to Noah. He was in the world but he was safe. Our safety is in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, of who he is and what he has accomplished for us, and of whose we are....."but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end." (Hebrews 3:6 NKJV) This verse is followed by "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion...."

WWPD......Redux

         The following was originally posted in May of  2013. The window of opportunity for our enemies, the Obamian Captivity of America, is slowly closing. Is there a institution of our government that has not been shown to be inept or corrupt and run by appointees chosen for political advantage instead of abilities? There probably is but they are few and far between.

WWPD       

         The phenomenon of Barack Hussein Obama reached its high-water mark shortly after his second inauguration but the revelations of the stand down and then cover-up mentalities during and after the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead may be the catalyst for the downfall of this administration. The aura of hope and change dissipated over the years and beneath it was the permanent odor of workers of the world, unite! 
          What many of us have known all along, many others are just now finding out, that being that Barack Obama does not have America's best interests at heart. I am in no way saying that Obama's agenda has been foiled. If he knows that his free ride is over, and he probably does, he may choose to throw all pretense to the wind as to defending a constitutional republic and devise schemes more treacherous than we have imagined up till now. My concern is also in what Putin and Ahmadinejad, to name only two of our enemies, might do. Communism and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism both have had a friend, or at the very least...a dupe, in the White House, and they now know that they may lose that advantage.

....and this from earlier this year......


           I have to remind myself every once in a while that the average American today does not know a whole lot about communism. At times it's almost as if it is seen as nothing but a conspiracy theory, as if it never really existed and as if over a hundred million people were never murdered under it. Communism lies, it kills, it terrorizes, it threatens and carries out those threats. It's godless, it dupes and cons people...whole peoples and when it attains power through coercion and deception it lowers the boom...no more promises for there is no need to give them for it now has total control and will henceforth dictate everything....to everybody!
          Communism is a dialectic in the Hegelian sense. It changes outwardly to survive inwardly. It is alive and thriving in our country, the very least representative being the Communist Party USA. It can call itself an American patriot or anything else. It feeds on the uniformed, the malcontent, the miscreant and the self-indulgent. Its only enemy is God.           
          Every facet of our society is unraveling before our very eyes. Emil Mazey, a twentieth century labor leader, is reported to have paraphrased the older proverb known as the duck test when he said the following..."I can't prove you are a Communist. But when I see a bird that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck,, has feathers and webbed feet and associates with ducks- I'm certainly going to assume that he is a duck."
          Please don't brush off this warning on Communism's resurgence in America and the imminent dangers that we all face from a collapsing society under the ravenous watchful eyes of wolves in sheep's clothing. Much of the unrest and chaos in America today is fomented by communists traveling to and joining in legitimate causes of protest to turn them ugly and violent.