The Seven Churches

        I was filling up my tank today at a gas station on a bluff that overlooked the Ohio River. I had spent the previous few hours walking on this sunny day and from the pumps I could see clearly over a mile down the river where a wall of rain looked like an Arabian sandstorm coming in. Above it were ominous black clouds. There was little or no breeze. It only took a few minutes but that cloud came closer and closer as the breeze became a wind and then a storm. The rain started as a drizzle, turned into large droplets and then a deluge. What went through my mind during this sequence was America and the coming storm that I can see as clearly as the one coming up the Ohio River. The following post is from 2012:

The Seven Churches   

         The third verse in the Book Of Revelation reads "Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of this prophesy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near." (ESV) A fair amount of my reading in the Bible is in this book along with the Old Testament prophets. These have been for every believer in every age since they were written but one would be especially unwise to ignore them today. The second and third chapters of Revelation are seven letters written to seven churches. They were real churches that existed. Some Christians believe that these churches describe seven church ages. I have never been convinced of that theory. Other Christians believe that those seven churches exist today according to the descriptions given. I do ascribe to this theory. There is an Ephesus church today, and a Smyrna church, and a Pergamum church, and a Thyatira church, and a Sardis church, and a Philadelphia church and a Laodicea church. I'm not talking about denominations or even continents where these churches might be located, rather a mindset for each church that could be located anywhere.
         I really don't go any further with this other than to say that it would behoove all Christians to meditate on the warnings given to these seven churches and to consider where we as individuals might fit in. It seems to me that this is the purpose of this part of Scripture. I can see myself at times as representing five of these churches excluding only Smyrna and Philadelphia, and I stand in dire need to hear the corresponding warnings as if written directly to me!       
         Yesterday I just happened to come across a church website of a fairly large church in a very large denomination. There must have been thirty or forty pages listing every ministry imaginable, and their calender was filled with activities that involved the community. Although I didn't listen to any of the sermons, the topics were generic and non-offensive. Most troubling of all was the mission statement and 'beliefs' links which had far less words in total than I have written so far in this particular post. This type of church is in every city of America, maybe in every community of America and we are what we are today, that of near demise, in no small part because of it.   
         No...Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of this prophesy..!. The warnings given in these chapters of Revelation are never far from my mind and from my own self-examination. Although all seven of these churches are probably within America somewhere, we seem to be typically Laodicean. This last statement would probably upset many pew sitters, ministry leaders and pastors but such is to be expected. I, for one, take these warnings very seriously and encourage any readers of these posts to do the same thing....for the time is near!

President Kennedy's 'Last Official Words'

         Many colleges and universities are having their commencement today, and I was on one of those campuses....unfortunately not to give a commencement speech......again!  I'll leave this post up front for a few hours.

The Shortest Commencement Speech Ever......May, 2013

         .......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:

       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 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 as encouragement in this commencement speech for they are the only truly reliable words here: 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 for a year with the United Nations.....to build peace.... Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
          You might want to save the planet or protect the environment .....without God it 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."

Bye Bye Miss American Dream

         There was a time when the American Dream could be summed up in the word 'opportunity.' Not everyone had a legitimate chance to become a millionaire but they did have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves. Was it perfect? No....far from it, and that opportunity wasn't universal but enough so that it drew millions here from other countries and most of them succeeded, and if not they  themselves then their children. But that's all gone. To those readers from other countries who comprise about a fifth of the readers to these posts.... there is no more... an American Dream. Oh, you can come here and make money if that's all you want. You might even become a billionaire but why come here, for if you are so good you could do the same thing in Europe or Asia.
         That 'opportunity,' that 'dream' that so many talked about came alongside of freedom and liberty.  The hand of God was on this nation, not to build an empire but to proclaim a kingdom....the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It's been done and we have since rejected Him... and his hand is no longer upon us. So come and make your billion if you so desire but the stench of greed and grasp of tyranny will come with it. We once had an American Creed.  It didn't matter what nationality we were for we were Americans but alas that is gone also.....we have been set up and taken to the cleaners.
          Communism is based upon a lie that it actually cares for the workers of the world and it will murder tens of millions of those workers to have the opportunity to prove it to you. That's what happened in the last 100 or so years. A revolution was taking place in Russia, proceeding just as all revolutions tend to, but there was an element within that wanted to replace one dictatorship with another.  The Bolsheviks were that element. If your life is going to be based upon a lie then you have to have someone to tell the lie and that is where we became the focus. Whether they be card-carrying Communists or just 'fellow travellers' as they call the help, they inundated America from education to unions, from the common man to the star of the silver screen and from the street activists to the Oval Office.
          God has to go if Communism is to survive so they attacked God. The family, marriage and private property all have to go, the creed has to go and the American dream has to become a nightmare. All these things were happening in due course but a group of United States Congressmen (HUAC- House Un-American Activities Committee) who were not so easy to fool, slowed the momentum down greatly. The Communists then used Senator Joe McCarthy as a whipping boy to pave their way again but another member of our Congress, a Senator who had become a president (JFK), put another roadblock in front of them. The Communist caused havoc all around the world until a former movie star, former governor and once again a president, called their bluff. We celebrated the perceived demise of Communism but they had a back-up plan in the Dialectic. They could retreat at any time and return under a new guise, a new name. They did so and took over the Democrat Party here in our country, put one of their own in the Oval Office, and are speedily giving away the store. Anyone for a cruise to Cuba?
          Communism is not one of the kings on a chessboard. It's a pawn that reached the eighth rank and changed into a Queen ready to do battle for the god of this world. Our battle is not on a chessboard, or political map or even a war table, for as Scripture informs us "....our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12  (KJV)

         The following is part of an unnamed Puritan's prayer The Awakened Sinner from Arthur Bennett's much valued book, Valley Of Vision:       

O my forgetful soul,
Awake from your wandering dream;
turn from chasing vanities,
look inward, forward, upward,
view thyself,
reflect upon thyself,
who and what thou art, why here,
what thou must be soon be.

Thou art a creature of God,
formed and furnished by him,
lodged in a body like a shepherd in his tent;
Dost thou not desire to know God's ways?

Take The Drudge Test

         I recently gave a piece of advice to a friend who did not share my opinion that America was in serious trouble, serious enough that its very existence is in danger. That advice was to read the headlines only on the Drudge Report for one month. That's it. Just read the headlines for one month and if there is any semblance of discernment left from this suicidal culture then one should see that these are times like no other in our nation's history and that this world is as in the days of Noah. I give that same advice to you in this post.
        There's not a whole lot of analysis involved in the Drudge Report, in fact there's probably none. What Matt Drudge does is take news articles from media sources around the country and around the world and link them to his website. Below these stories he has links to about 100 individual websites from people such as Charles Krauthammer, Rush Limbaugh and Thomas Sowell to Liz Smith, Maureen Down and Peggy Noonen. Alongside this he has another 100 or so links to newspapers, magazines and news outlets. As I write this post, the Drudge Report claims 24 million hits in the last 24 hours and almost 9 billion hits in the last year. Half of them are probably mine but that's still a lot of hits.
        Lest anyone think that I'm some kind of Drudge groupie, he often makes me just shake my head. I question his wording on many of the primary headlines and I think that he must either sleep through the weekend or celebrate somewhere, for miraculously it seems that all the world's news just about stops for 48 hours.  So, I'm not a great fan but what he puts out is necessary. It's simple and it informs about 1000% over what the mainstream news media does. Limbaugh will comment on it on his show regularly and so will Mark Levin.
        The Drudge Report has been around for twenty years. Matt Drudge had a couple of major scoops at the beginning and he was on his way after that. He's an 'old school' reporter, conservative but somewhat libertarian and he's as tenacious as a pit bull. He supplies that which the mainstream media refuses to report and provides an invaluable service to Americans. One will also see on the Drudge Report, stories of those who are fighting tooth and nail to slow the hemorrhage in our national defense, shore up what is left of our Constitution and restore some sense of sanity to our culture.
         Admittedly, reading Drudge does not guarantee an awareness on our condition just as one can read every word in the Bible many times over and have no clue as who Jesus Christ is  or what His Gospel proclaims but there are those out there whose eyes will be opened when they read for the first time.
         What one will not get in any way shape or form from the Drudge Report is that which is our only hope....the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, I shouldn't say that for occasionally there will be a report on something that Franklin Graham has said or that his father Billy has written in Decision Magazine.  No, the answers for America are not generally to be found on the Drudge Report, only the evidences of God's hand having been lifted from our nation.....but that is a start anyway!

See also: breitbart.com and wnd.com, and for matters that do pertain to that which we really need as a nation and as individuals there is 24 hour Internet Radio ".....Committed To The Historic Christian Faith" that can be easily accessed at refnet.fm.
               

An Amicus Brief For America's Enemies

        
        Ireland, through a national referendum, became the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage, or "enshrine" it as one news source noted. In a large turnout, 62% of the people signed on to what that same news source noted as "a new nation."   They made their priorities in this life very clear and we are not far behind them. God's word and warnings about this are also very clear. The following are three recents posts on the general topic.

        The same-sex marriage debate has very little to do with the relationship between two people of the same sex. Certainly there are many people of whom this is the key issue but ultimately they are pawns on a much bigger chessboard. This is a political and ideological battle which has been part of the ongoing war on America. Whether it bei communists or globalists, they had fully understood from their beginnings that their only real enemy in this world, their key adversary by far, and their biggest obstacle, was the American people. As long as that original American mindset held the majority, they, Communism and Globalism, different as they are and enemies though they may be, would never achieve the tyranny they wanted. So they went after that majority in many ways. Feminism was one and it has been very effective in changing the character of the American male with just about every area of our society effected for the worse while equally (an ironic choice of words) sapping the strength of American womanhood. A second obvious area was in race relations and a third in income distribution. Each was to be purposely stirred to the point of social unrest The last area was in the establishing of a gay agenda which would further tear apart the American family. These entities, Communism and Globalism, cared not one iota for women, nor minorities, nor the poor, nor homosexuals. I realized long ago, that as long as Americans held to their heritage, their enemies would be kept at arms length. I, and many others, saw the pillars of our society crack and then one by one fall, the last collapse being debated right now in the Supreme Court of the United States.
         The church, in its liberal and mainstream adaptation, played a key part in this battle, switching sides midstream. Whereas it should be part of the singlemost strength of America, it has steadily deteriorated to the point where it now not only does not oppose those who hate America but files amicus brief after amicus brief in favor of those who do.
         As America's enemies strategized, they knew that above American patriotism, beyond its protestant ethic and the source behind its military strength, was their religious belief, for it held everything together. The concept of God had to be destroyed in the American mind and every temptation, every deception and every lure was to be directed towards this. The gay agenda is to be the final nail in America's coffin, for if same-sex marriage is legitimized and legislated, which by the way is totally unnecessary and should by all rights be patently absurd in the American mind, it will utterly destroy effectual belief in God in not only American youth but in every age bracket. The churches that blindly support this will have followed the same path of the German churches that caved to the Third Reich. The rest will be a persecuted minority, and America will finally reap the whirlwind that it has increasingly sowed.

Intellectual Integrity

         Yesterday's post addressed the ideological background of the gay agenda that is waging full scale war with America. Today I'd like to address the Biblical implications of same-sex marriage. You see, one can feel as one wants on gay marriage and one can feel as one wants on God's Word but one cannot claim to believe the Bible and then knowingly reject what it says. I'll give verses from both the Old and New Testaments and then add a few comments of which will pose a question of logic to you.
          In the first verses from the 19th chapter of Genesis, Abraham had been interceding to God for the city of Sodom where his nephew Lot had taken up residence. Two angels arrived in Sodom and told Lot of their intention to stay in the town square overnight but Lot "pressed them strongly" to spend the night at his house which they agreed to. Verse 4 describes what happened next..."But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them'." Lot went out to meet them and implored of them not to do this wicked thing. The men then said to him..."This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge!" The angels then rescued Lot, struck the men outside with blindness and in the morning "....the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground."
          The second text is from the book of Romans of the New Testament in chapter one. Paul was writing about God's wrath on unrighteousness. Verse 26 continues with what God had given him to pen..."For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."
         Now, we are free to hold to any opinion on this issue and live our lives accordingly but how does one read what God has told us and commanded of us and then hope to retain any semblance of intellectual integrity while denying what is so clearly relayed to us? Deny the Bible if you want for you have that right but admit that you reject that Bible. Hold to the interpretation that God's Word is not literally true but rather merely figurative and cultural adages that can be interpreted in many ways...do this if you desire to do so. Deny Christ....reject all of the Bible....become a radical atheist. All these things are available to you and you can still at least claim order and structure to your logic, but to in any way shape or form hold to these positions and then claim any connection whatsoever to historical Christianity is a dishonest argument void of logic.
         I've chosen this tact for the sake of those readers to these posts who are Christians but who have been deceived in a culture that awards such deception and ignorance. You attend church every Lord's Day and believe that there is nothing that could separate you from your faith in Jesus Christ but you have underestimated the frailty of man and the evil ingenuity of Satan. I'm sure that I have too, that all Christians have to one extent or another, but getting the wrong answer on this issue that God considered important enough to destroy whole cities because of ultimately sends souls to hell, destroys churches, whole denominations....and nations.
         This is a simple issue of logic as sure as the Pythagorean Theorem is of Euclidean geometry. It does not require interpretation....only common sense and honesty. As to what is and is not discrimination towards the gay community is a different arena of debate, but to claim Christianity, the love of God's Word and love of Jesus Christ and adamantly refuse to accept the content of what is so clearly written is an act of volition...a purposeful rejection of that which one claims to love. It is a lie.....and how will you then interpret John 8:44 where Jesus in speaking of the Devil says...."He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies."


          I'm updating this third post with a note as a result of a short clip I just viewed from the PBS program The McLaughlin Group which has rapid fire, almost sound-bite, debate with four mostly regular guests holding differing political viewpoints. No sooner had I tuned in and one of those guests, a National Review columnist no less, had this to say about same-sex marriage...."...that younger conservative voters-people more like myself, even if we're not gay- -you know, we've grew up with gay people and we don't have a problem with them having the same rights." Now I'm not familiar with this columnist but would have this to say....you also grew up without the benefits of a God-fearing country young man....that's why you don't have a problem with it, and I think it a little presumptuous to say that all younger conservative voters feel the way that you do, but your testimony supports what I wrote about a few days ago in the following post that the ultimate 'prize' in this war on America and its heritage of the Christian faith has been to conquer the minds of the youth. You are part of that prize! Lastly, the 'right' spoken about is for a man and a woman to marry. What we are talking about with this issue is an extension or expanding of a right to the extent of fundamental deconstruction and wholesale revision of it, not simply a securing or protecting of one.

The Prize

         Tonight's post is the third on the topic of same-sex marriage and it focuses on God's judgement upon America. Several individual states have a ban on same-sex marriage at the present time and the Supreme Court may rule that those bans are unconstitutional. If this happens America will have officially sanctioned these unions.
         For an individual such as myself, an adult Christian, it is only the latest of our culture's and our nation's rejection of God, and my subjugation is not the prize that those who are attempting to force this upon us are disparately seeking, for they want the children, and they want them for a purpose. Imagine if you will where the tentacles will reach if America loses this court decision. Eventually all of our children's education, even in the private sector, will not only have to condone but advance homosexuality. These people are not the type that rely on reason or persuasion, and they could care less about ethics or tolerance. They haven't invented this characteristic....they've been taught it by the very best.
         Yes, many families will protect their children in such a culture but an overwhelming majority of this nation's children will be guided, taught and coerced into either ignoring God, for it would be obvious to the children that the Bible is meaningless, or many of the others will follow their parents into this new and accepted Christianity which is a false Christianity that authors of the New Testament predicted for the end times and repeatedly warned against. America would be Godless, childless and utterly defenseless, the last of which being the much sought after prize by our enemies.
        This is by no means the only attack on Christianity in America....only the latest, definitely the greatest and probably the last. We will have offered up our children on a sacrificial altar every bit as much as various pagan peoples that we have only read about in history books. From what I have gleaned from the Old Testament prophets on God's judgements upon peoples such as this, such as we have become... He warns over a period of time, details the judgements, and fulfills His promise. He has warned us very specifically now for over forty years and those judgements have already begun. We as a people are totally devoid of wisdom. You can see this in our government, you can feel it in the mayhem prevalent on our urban streets, and you can view the intellectual carnage everywhere emanating from the many entertainment mediums that have become our gods. If you haven't trembled...if you haven't wept....then you will at that time of our judgement have no idea from whence our troubles came nor why our distress was inflicted upon us and therefore no where to turn and no concept of a mercy to be sought nor the One to seek it from.
       
   
       

         
       

Focused

         While weed wacking in the yard yesterday, in a somewhat somber mood, I called for my wife to come over and said "If something were to happen to me, I should give directions on a few things that you're not familiar with..." and I proceeded to tell her how to use the electric weed wacker. She seemed interested and responded....."Come inside a little later and in case something would ever happen to me I'll show you how to load the dishwasher."
         She likes little knick-knacks and often orders from those catalogs we all get in the mail. I was looking for my keys earlier today and she pointed to them hanging on the wall. I thanked her, grabbed the keys and began to walk away. She folded here arms with that look. "What?" She pointed. I looked to see a black wrought iron mouse on the wall whose tail I grabbed the keys from. "Oh that's nice!"
         It's not easy living with Special Dog. We might be on a drive in the country where she is admiring the hills and the foliage while I'm reviewing in my mind the difference between a Menshevik and a Bolshevik......"Oh, look at that cute farmhouse over there!" "Uh-huh." Pause....."There's an elephant dancing on the roof."......."Uh-huh."
         My mind is often focused on what is transpiring in America today and in the Christian church. Working in the electric power generating industry, I often find myself in awe at what I see that engineers can accomplish. I give them all the credit in the world for the hard work, studying and perseverance they employed to get where they are. The same can be said for medicine and many other sciences and crafts but there's a fly in the ointment of genius, for one cannot simply apply calculus to government or a PHD to saving faith, but that's what often happens. The groundwork is often not done in these areas, nor the continuous studying, and the determination to even contemplate them likely ends when the game.....any game.....begins. The intellect is there, it's just not being used beyond its service to our material or prideful desires.
        In God's eyes the janitor is as honorable as the surgeon, the dirt farmer as the college professor, and the 99 IQ as the member of Mensa, for He and He alone gave us our station in life and our abilities. To admire others with great abilities in the sciences is a reflection of God's grace to us as it is for the great lawyer to admire the physical toil of the hard working mechanic.
        If our minds revolve around and take unspeakable joy in not only the designer of this universe and everything in it but in His very words to us in our Bibles, in His unimaginable love and undeserved longsuffering towards us, and in His omniscience in knowing our thoughts even before we have them.....and if we therefore see that we truly are fallen creatures, fully deserving of condemnation but offered forgiveness in Jesus Christ..... then love for one another will be there, it cannot help but be there, and respect for one another will bring more joy than pride in our own accomplishments; but we sit ignorantly and blissfully detached from so great a salvation and such a fullness of joy, and thus we exist in this culture of our own making. For me personally...I find that my mind is most often focused on what is transpiring in America and in the Christian church, and on my own transgressions against a Holy God.... but it is also, at the same time, focused on the cross where 'mercy and truth are met together,'  and on the One.... 'from whom all blessings flow.'

Footprints

         This story probably won't resonate with you very much....for it is peculiar to something that happened to me 30 years ago, but I humbly submit it to you anyway. I have to lay some groundwork first. I was a very new Christian. In fact I'm not really certain that I was actually regenerated at the time, but I was excited about this gospel thing that was overwhelming me. My wife and I went on a cruise to the Caribbean and I didn't even take along a Bible. We were on the last leg of the cruise and a storm came up at sea making it impossible to do anything on the ship. I lay on the single bed, more of a bunk, and opened the drawer of the table only to find a Bible put there by the Gideons. New and ignorant on how to read the Bible, I opened it and put my finger on the page to see if God had anything to say to me. It was the 93rd Psalm and as the ship tossed back and forth while glasses and other items were sliding on the table I read ".....Greater than the roar of many waters-the mighty breakers of the sea- the Lord on high is majestic." Enough said on that!
        Now for today as I was with some friends. In just general conversation among five or six of us the subject of 'time' came up and one of the men knew what he wanted to say but butchered his thought a little. It came out something like this... "time is like walking in the ocean and then your footprints are quickly washed away and you can't see them." We knew that he meant 'walking on the sand at the shore' but hammered him mercilessly for a few minutes anyway. The words he used stayed with me for a little while and I later commented that actually they were profound in a Zen Buddhist sort of way, similar to the 'sound of one hand clapping.'
        Fast forward and I opened up my Bible a little while ago for my daily reading. I read a lot of late in the Old Testament prophets and recommend the same to you. In fact if you are not reading in this area of the Word of God.....in this day and age.....then you are probably missing something that God may have for His church; and the Psalms also speak to us in a very prophetic way!
         For no special reason I started today's reading with the 73rd Psalm. I read slowly and take notes and highlight quite a bit but eventually came to the 77th Psalm. Terrors of some sort are inflicting the people and the Psalm begins "I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and He will hear me." Today is May 7, 2015 and the National Day of Prayer sponsored by Shirley and Dr. James Dobson. The theme of this year is "Lord, Hear Our Cry!" I then came to verse 19 which reads....."Your way went through the sea, and your path through the great waters, but your footprints were unseen." This resonated with me so because that silly and unscriptural episode of mine 30 years ago was near the beginning of the Word of God being opened to me. But it more than resonated with me....it moved me to prayer for my hope is that that single verse, so very similar in particulars to my friend's comments today, so seemingly purposeful in how this transpired, that it might someday be a source of praise to him as the 93rd Psalm is to me!

"And As The Days Of Noah Were...."

        In my first ten years as a Christian, in Evangelicalism....and as a Pentecostal, there was one particular verse used over and over in relation to America and that verse is 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." There are quite a few issues involved with applying this verse to America, I'll mention just one, that being that the people of the United States of America were never 'God's people.' Had the framers of our Constitution dedicated their work to Jesus Christ or at least clearly implied that He was the benefactor of their blessings then we at least would have grounds to make the 'mistake' of calling ourselves 'God's people.'
         No... Americans were never 'God's people', rather a 'God fearing' people. Christians are God's people but Christians are not America. This is not to say that nothing can be gleaned by the Christian from the verse for much surely can be but to fail to delineate the difference between 'God's people' and a 'God fearing' people is to presume upon God that He would heal our nation because He made a covenant with us, which is the foundation of this particular verse in 2 Chronicles, when in fact He may not heal us and He did not make a covenant with us as a nation! 
         This may be our Achilles Heal, we think that we are untouchable, too powerful to be overthrown. We don't need borders, we don't need laws  The worst that could happen to us would be another stock market collapse. Planet earth has become our god. Many who could not give a definition for the word 'pagan' are in fact pagan themselves.
         There is a verse that seems to scream.... America....and even Western Civilization.... when I read it but it is not a hopeful verse. From the same English Standard Version (ESV) Romans 1:28 reads "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind....." The word debase means to lower the quality or value of. That is us! Not only are we incapable of doing anything about our problems, we are incapable of discerning our problems. What other possible reason could explain 'same-sex marriage' other than a debased mind that God has left, ".....to do what ought not to be done."

"But As The Days Of Noah Were..."       November, 2014

         In amongst an entire chapter of information concerning the tribulation period, Jesus gave us this particular revelation of the Second Coming in verse 37 of that 24th chapter of Mathew, "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." If you read the Genesis account in chapter six you will find that what Jesus was referring to wasn't quite as simple as just getting married but rather that  men "....took wives for themselves of all whom they chose." In the next verse we see God's response in "And the Lord said, 'My Spirit shall not strive with man forever...'." A few verses later we read "for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth." And once again a few verses later "....the earth is filled with violence."
        We all know of the wanton killing that occurs all the time in the Middle East. More recently we hear unbelievable stories closer to home in Mexico. Here in Pittsburgh we could have three murders in one day and people watching the news would just shake their head and go on to the next story. As a child I viewed an occasional gunfight on television and there was hardly any gore. Our children today are exposed to digital displays of gruesome human carnage on a daily basis through many mediums.
         We are violent in America and violence is encompassing the whole world. Possibly you have seen the ultrasound picture in the news this week of a baby smiling in the womb? Yet the world celebrates the ongoing slaughter of abortion. As for the Biblical verses mentioned above on marriage? Have you read the accounts this week that the abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria have been "married off?"Do we not marry whomever we want today irrespective of God's laws?
          As I write this, on a Sunday afternoon, is it not probable that much of America does not have a care in the world about violence as they watch their football games...unless it is a quarterback's concussion of course?  Ponder your own weekend so far. Had America's rebellion against God or His warnings of judgement that are becoming clearer as time goes on even been discussed in the fellowship with friends that you probably had taken part in? If you are a church goer were there any warnings emanating from the pulpit? Generally, Americans are concerned but that concern is kept below the surface so as not to make it appear that they are not as psychologically or spiritually secure as the one sitting next to them at work or in church.

          "But as were the days of Noah"...... are we as in the days of Noah? It must be possible to know of such a situation or Jesus would not have given us the clue. One last verse...in speaking of the people in Noah's day, Jesus then said "(they) did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."