Auld Lang Syne

         In a few minutes we will enter into a new year.....the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Sixteen. Surely you've been in quite a number of conversations this day. Think about them for a moment if you would. As a matter of fact you can go back days if you want....or weeks.....or months. In how many of those conversations were either you or those you were in conversation with visibly concerned, viscerally moved or shaken by the collapsing state of our nation, a nation assigned the responsibility of protecting us from the foreign enemy. My guess is that there may have been one or two. How many of those people literally believed that America has officially renounced its heritage, and therefore its trust in God, and therefore it shall be no more as it once was or be secure no more as it has always been? Probably none right? Well you have met such a person in this post!
        It is incomprehensible to me that God will let us go on. We are already a dystopian society. Hollywood has many times depicted such societies on the silver screen as blighted and ruined metropolises. I expect that we may very well get there but that description is more the aftermath. A drive through our cities and rural areas would not show the chaos. Minor complaints are heard at work, kids are busy with their sports teams, people mosey along at the malls, new movies come out...new television shows, analysts give their projections for the Dow in the coming year, political analysts give poll by poll commentary on the coming election for a president and as usual the bowl games and Super Bowl are in the minds of many men right now....particularly in the Bible Belt.
         Many are spending these waning hours of 2015 at a New Years Eve party where there is laughter, games and kisses after the Times Square ball drops. We just came home ourselves from a few hours of fellowship, but God's Word speaks directly to a situation like this in the hidden yet revealing 24th chapter of Matthew....."As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the ark..."
        So why can't the reader here see what I'm seeing? I ponder over this question all the time. That's part of the reason for the seven years of these posts....to warn the reader that we as a people have not adequately discerned either God's extraordinary patience with us or His consistent warnings to us from well-upwards of 40 years now! This culture that has emerged, and this society that is emerging is not a place that one should look forward to living in. Back in the 70s some Christians saw the 'computer' as a tool of the coming Antichrist if not in some way the Antichrist himself. They were laughed off but it has indeed become a soulless logarithmic monster that rules us...threatens us...and dehumanizes us. We are becoming like the computer even more than the other way around.
          One company alone, Facebook, has significantly lulled Christians to sleep, and today it has become a worldwide political influence to be reckoned with by anyone who values freedom and liberty. Some of the most renowned philosophers of today have warned against where AI (artificial intelligence) is going. Marxist insurgencies have been sprouting up undetected as such all over America and while terrorist cells are not only here, more are being invited by this group that has taken over the Executive Branch of our government. The debt problem alone, in America and the world,  particularly as it can be exploited by globalists, should have everyone saving money and preparing for the worst, but instead of preparing, we work on goals...or our abs. These atrocities that have beset us, and the many more gross distortions of civilized society that we simply shake our head or roll our eyes at, should have sent the Christian church to its knees, but we party on only with nicer language, supremely confident that God would not judge us in any way more than an economic downturn, and if indeed these are the last days, there is always the Rapture to take faithful followers away beforehand. They would be wrong on both counts for we, the corporate American Christian church, have not been faithful in defending the verities of the Gospel, for we are not fully aware of them....and there is no Rapture until well into the Tribulation if that Tribulation be near.
         Politics can in no way save us. The most that a God-fearing president and Congress could do is fortify the few walls that are left and expose the main culprits that have damaged them, so as to humble us in our stupidity if nothing else, but there is one thing that can be rebuilt in its entirety......a fortress impregnable, for there are more promises in God's Word than you could pin to your outercoat, promises where God will keep those who trust in Him! What is implied in these many verses is that the individual person sees not only trouble ahead but our own culpability in that impending trouble....and then proclaims in abject humility but righteous hope....in our God we trust! Our trust today has no antecedent other than itself....we trust in our trust!
         Auld Lang Syne essentially means...'old times'....for old times. May America go even farther back in this new year and heed the words of the LORD as penned by the prophet Jeremiah...."Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls..."
      

In My Mind's Eye

          I guess that I started dressing this way over a period of a few years. Brown is my favorite color and my wife can attest to that.....just about any shade of brown. In all my shirts I simply look for a XXL tag. Now my size is more of an XL but I like the shirt sleeves real loose with maybe a six or eight inch cuff. I'm not really particular about the color of my knee high stockings held up by black garters at the bottoms of my baggy britches which are in turn held up by a leather belt with a big buckle. I like buckles! I'll cover the shirt with a tight fitting button-down vest and then wear a more colorful doublet, maybe blue, over it. You know what a doublet is don't you? It's kind of like an outer vest that a hunter might wear while rabbit hunting. Any old brown leather shoes will do....as long as there is a big buckle on them. I then like to fasten a fluffy ruff around my neck. You know....like the Dutch Masters used to wear. And everything is topped off with a tall, wide brimmed hat with a leather strap and big buckle on it. Give me my cape to cover my Bible from the rain, and a cane, and I'm ready to go. So...this is what I look like.....

....in my mind's eye anyway!
         In reality... my thoughts, opinions and habits over the period of a few years seem to sway towards these men that were given the derisive sobriquet...Puritans. In the pietistic early days of my Christian walk I refrained from beer and tobacco. I had a vision of what meek was supposed to be and tried to be such but it wasn't my personality. I struggled with this for a while until I saw that meekness was not necessarily in the tone of your voice or what one imbibed or didn't imbibe. Meekness was a deeper attribute, one that viewed others as more important than oneself. A psychologist today might want to cure you of it but this fit my personality.
         Much of my reading was Puritan literature and it was humbling to say the least. Their knowledge made mine seem undetectable. Their dedication made me feel lazy, and their love for one another transcended the temporal that we cue in on today. They were immovable in defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in His written Word to us. They were ideal citizens, fathers and mothers. They laughed one moment but could be as serious as a dead rat the next. They loved their beer and laughter. They did not care what anyone thought of them, only what their Lord and Savior thought of them. This life was a pilgrimage to them...and it was something they were good at.
         I would never....ever....try to emulate them, and I could not have if I tried, but as time passed I saw vague similarities in my thinking...not nearly as honorable or true....but just similarities. I noticed some of this in my own writing, for I can try my best at humor in one post, and in the next write of the awesome immutable majesty of God. I don't see a contradiction here, in fact it seems so natural to enjoy life one moment yet be sober as a pilot the next. I can laugh and converse with a friend one moment and then when we part... pull out my Bible and become transfixed in awe as I read of the glory due God the Father and His Son and His Holy Spirit! I felt that I needed to write this post, for often I thought that the reader might see this odd mixture and wonder how it could be. Whether I have explained it adequately I don't know but at least I gave an attempt. Thank-you for your indulgence.

note: The sculpture is Augustus Saint-Gaudens....The Puritan!

"....On The Playing Fields Of ESPN"

         The full text of this post is about nine posts below this and titled On The Playing Fields Of ESPN. America's hedge of protection....the Lord's Day....has been decimated, brush hogged and turned into a stadium parking lot.


...........The message in this post is a serious one. I tried to preface it with a little humor but it is actually life or death. I'm writing here to the American male fifty years of age and older. We remember America as it once was; at least we were educated at a time when we were proud to see that striped flag with the white stars over blue in the upper left corner. John Wayne was a hero then. George Washington was an even greater hero. We, as children, felt secure and thankful for those heroes on beachheads in the Pacific and forested hillsides of Europe. We had generals like George Patton and Douglas MacArthur, and soldiers like Audie Murphy and Sgt York. We still have the soldiers but the generals have been somewhat hamstrung by the most unimpressive of presidents we ever sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Our weak Congress almost makes us wish that we had a king and our tyrannical king makes us wish that we had a Congress! Yet we glory on in our sports teams. The origin and meaning of the phrase may be somewhat in doubt but it still holds its sway in our minds....The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton...but if a similar phrase is to be constructed in the future it may read....America was lost on the playing fields of ESPN. 
        I know very well the allure of American sports. I stood shouting on the wooden benches at Pitt Stadium and paraded through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh after a Super Bowl win. I was for many years not vigilant for my country, my soul or my country's soul. I thus share in the responsibility of America's failures that have resulted in the politically correct and suicidal culture that rules us today. I testify here that the thrills of those days were more than a waste of time for they have repercussions. All one can do when confronted with the evidences of dereliction of duty is to make amends with an extreme dedication from that time forward. All one can do when one sees oneself, in all one's abysmal iniquity, is to fall before the One offended and seek mercy and pardon.
          I testify also that all of the emotions combined in a life based on sports is not equal to but a moment of feeling the grace of forgiveness found at the foot of Calvary, and that all the lifetime excitements of winning combined cannot compare to understanding the caption written on the rider of the white horse in Revelation 19:16.... KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

IMHO

         The world elites have a big problem in Donald Trump. They're more like a family than co-conspirators and Trump is crashing their party. The American people have always been more than a thorn in their side, what with their Christianity and patriotism, but these world elites....aided and rivaled at the same time by Marxists and Communists who are in it for their own reasons, have been whittling down that opposition for many decades and have been more than successful...up until now. It doesn't matter to these elites if Republicans or Democrats lead the Congress of the United States and occupy the White House as long as they continue to buy into....the agenda!
         Rather than defending Western Civilization that made possible their fortunes, these elites looked around at the seemingly insurmountable problems in a world of seven plus billion people and came up with their own answer....a powerful beast of a world government. Wars jeopardize their fortunes, so borders have to be eliminated and a single governing authority installed. Wealth has to be covertly and deceptively redistributed from richer nations to poorer nations for their profit vistas to be improved.....it has nothing to do with compassion. The Christian faith is a fly in the ointment, even more so than that of the patriotic American. It can't be eliminated, for history has shown that time and time and time again, but it can be superseded by a secular religion whose priests are in higher education and whose prophets are scientists. As for our politicians, rather than believing in God who raised this nation...and rather than depending upon His wisdom that has sustained us, they looked elsewhere and sold their inheritance for a mess of pottage.      
        The elites...global power brokers....super-rich....whatever you want to call them, have been waging this war on Americans for many decades. Ronald Reagan was a big problem for them but George H. W. got things back on track. The Clintons were a god-send and George W. tried but he got involved in that nasty patriotism and then subprime mortgage con. They had great hopes for Barack Obama but they still don't even know who he really is. Is he one of them....or a communist.....or an Islamacist?
        And then along came Donald Trump. I don't think that he has ever said a single solitary thing that multitudes of Americans have not bellowed from the rooftops for years.....but he said these things on a stage and in a national forum. Trump revivified those patriotic American conservatives with their faith in God and love of country, and the elites are probably pulling their hair out. They had plans for dealing with Ted Cruz and Rand Paul but were caught flat-footed by Trump.
       Friends...their Plan A was to be carried out through politics, lies and entitlements, aided by an impaired and Facebook driven culture, and enforced by political-correctness. If they can't pull that one off then Plan B will have to be put in action. They may start a world war....they may instigate a collapse of Wall Street....they may cause the dollar to collapse.....they will do whatever is necessary to circumvent the American political process and growing remnant of a common sense and logic infected American public!
        What they don't know at this time is that they are attempting to bridle an amorphous scarlet beast carrying an indiscernible rider that may soon begin to take shape.

"....By Rights"

         What kind of name is Special Dog? Well that's not my real name of course for my real name is....Straggler.....Private Straggler. I'll be the last one to enter the Celestial City.....and the least of those in line....and the greatest testament to God's love of the unlovable and mercy upon the least deserving of it. And if there is someone behind me I'll wait for them....for by rights I should witness every glory filled face before mine shines in the presence of the King of Glory.
         Friends, examine this concept of God that has taken hold in American religion. I don't blame the people for their pabulum reverence....for they... most of America... have never beheld His glory in a sermon....and never adequately understood what one is 'saved' from! Little is demanded from anyone and less is offered by us in the form of humility. No, I can hardly blame anyone for giving God no more than one percent of their thoughts. I realize this because before He hogtied me with the cords of His love and mercy....and before He branded me with the imprint of His Word upon my soul....I would have been far more excited to meet Elvis Presley than seek His face let alone stand on holy ground!
         So it is no surprise that people do not recognize the extent of our pitiful state in this country today....nor are aware of the severity of judgments upon us which have only just begun. Politics is seen as the answer because few know what the real question was...."...who do you say that I am?" The answer of course is....."You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." If one truly understands that statement then one would have already beheld His glory, known very well what one was 'saved' from, and realized that we deserve His protective hand being lifted from us!
         
         

"There Has Been An Error...."

          I know that you read about it by now but did you see that Miss Universe Pageant? I saw the clip on YouTube. It wasn't life or death but it was still hard to watch. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the Master of Ceremonies crowned the wrong contestant! He crowned the runner-up. Immediately after that it was just like any other major beauty pageant with the pomp and celebration. And then the MC was told the error. It was all on live television. He had to apologize and find the words to explain what happened. Miss Columbia didn't move a muscle as her world temporarily collapsed around her.
          I had a similarly embarrassing situation happen to me earlier in life. It wasn't millions of people watching but it was probably a few thousand. I don't want to give the specifics of the incident other to say that it was an achievement but not a title or a win or even an award. Nonetheless it was a difficult moment. One that, for better or worse, had an impact in my life. Well, enough of that!
          Are you sure that you are a Christian? Now you don't know me from Adam so you should be able to freely meditate on this. I'm not referring here to things that you do or might not do as criteria for being a Christian. I'll simply ask one question.....are you, or have you ever been, overwhelmed.... overwhelmed.... overwhelmed....by God's grace towards you? If not then there may have been an error.....for one can adhere to the Christian faith as with any other of the world's religions but know not Christ or be covered by His shed blood.

No Vision....No Wisdom....No Problem

        There are a succession of scenes from David Mamet's 1999 film The Winslow Boy that show how affluence can vanish in a family's life. The film is great but its not the topic here, rather the message from the original play written by Terance Rattigan in the 1940s. Arthur Winslow's youngest son is accused of a crime and the entire film resolves around his father's accumulating legal bills for his defense. Furniture might disappear here or a painting there as items are sold off. See this film if you get the opportunity.
         American lifestyles are about to change. Whether it be that the return of Jesus Christ is near or not, we cannot continue as we are. We are an inglorious mess here in the United States. When you have tens of millions of voters ready to vote for Hillary Clinton....you are an inglorious mess. When your colleges and universities have billion dollar endowments but not two nickels of wisdom to rub together you are an inglorious mess.
        Our Congress just passed a 1.1 trillion dollar pork-filled omnibus spending bill and they could not possibility have read the 2242 pages let alone analyzed them, and this with us barely able to keep the lights on as it is!  You can kick the can down the road only so far for the road has to eventually end. Our economic system is going to implode, and this not in the distant future. Our television has become an electronic replica of the Weimar cabaret where you can get anything that you want. We no longer have the will to defend ourselves anymore for there has to be some kind of unity and we don't have it. The only kind of unity that we are close to is in stupidity.
         We have no vision as a people. I don't mean a vision for the future but rather vision of the present. If we did we would be sitting right now with our face in our hands, praying to God for mercy. If we did, church sanctuaries on a Sunday morning would be as quiet as a hospital emergency room. If we did pastors would be entering their pulpits thinking that this might be their last sermon for the congregation may refuse to let them give another with so bleak a picture of America's future.
          We would be a laughing stock but those who see what we have become are far more likely to shed tears of sorrow than of laughter. God help us... for we have fallen so far. This present insanity cannot go on. Morning follows every New Year's Eve party and the reality that will face the revelers this year will be at the very least stark, the months ahead treacherous and the seasons fraught with instability.

Genderless Neutered Society

       A little explanation is needed for those readers who return to this website and see many older posts reappear. My intention was never to have 'followers' who would come back again and again to read my latest thoughts. I'm sure that I am not good enough for that. Rather I want to reach as many readers as possible and warn them that God's judgement upon America may indeed be near....if in fact it has not already begun.
       I emphasize in these posts the weakness of evangelical preaching today and the utter betrayal of much of the protestant church which has contributed to the decomposition of our society. One would have to study the past to see this and its not something that we like to do. We think we are fine.....we are not! In the arena of politics there are two things that I constantly return to; the first being that politics is not our answer and will never be our answer. It's simply a necessity that we have to pay attention to. The second is that there is very little difference between the Republican establishment and the Democrat Party, and that only within a general awakening across America, a humbling of ourselves before our Creator which would by definition include those in our Congress, could we even hope to continue in our freedoms and liberties.
          I once described America in these posts as the unravelling of a rope but today we are in a freefall. We are eyewitnesses of history in the collapse of an empire. Some of us know it...most do not. God has explicitly warned us for over half a century, nothing has just been implied. He removed His hedge around us and enemies walked in as easily as walking from tee to green.  The following post is from December of 2013:   

Genderless Neutered Society

         It is astounding and it is numbing, what is happening to our country; yet one little sentence can make multitudes oblivious to it. That sentence might be something like 'Oh, people have always said that it's worse today than it ever was'. Well it is worse today than it ever was...and terrifyingly so. There are tremors on this earth, both of nature and mankind, that should make even the most stouthearted to sweat. It's difficult to put the individual tremors into perspective. I readily admit that. Had they all not be happening at once, we might be able to focus on any particular tremor but as it is we read of them as if we were just reading one apocalyptic movie plot after another. And of course we have our vast array of barbiturates in the form of entertainments that can sedate us.
          Our society has collapsed. Whole professions have given in to the zeitgeist of the day with narcissism run rampant, journalistic news not the least of them, of which even conservative commentators giggle and twitter (the verb not the social media) as they read cue cards hoping not to mix up the facial expressions for a story on a costume malfunction with a terrorist bombing. The family unit is mocked as mockery itself has become the new family unit. Education has become indoctrination, law enforcement has become militarized as the military is becoming a conduit for a distorted view of diversity, making ugly that which should be beautiful.
          Our government has become as a bloated tyrant with sauces and entrails dripping from its chin as it voraciously devours anything its iron teeth can masticate. We stumble along as a people with no idea where we came from or whom we are indebted to. Our pulpits without the cross of Christ are dry, lifeless, sun-bleached shells good only for shining up to place in a curio cabinet along with other porcelain figurines and relics of our past. We are becoming a genderless neutered society. Laws now mean nothing unless the offense is against the genderless neutered society. Words have no origin, no real objective meaning, as images hypnotize and teach us. Logic is used as much as cursive writing and common sense as a curtsy.
          The world itself is reeling, not from man-made global warming, the absurdity of which is a by-product of everything written above, but from design and implementation of a Creator who will not be mocked. If these are the last...of the last days then those who mock God will have their way....for a very, very short while and the tremors will turn into fissures, and the fissures chasms, and the chasms an abyss. Even so, Come Lord Jesus!

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 ever missed a vacation at the beach in 39 years. 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 nowadays 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.....

Note to this older post: In what is remarkable in this saddeningly weak age in America for the preaching of Jesus Christ in all his majesty, glory and power, I regularly hear a preacher like this again today. With one arm on the railing for support and the other using a cane, this man of my age slowly ascends the steps to the pulpit for he has a progressive and degenerative disease. It came upon him quickly. Yet he also has been gifted of God to proclaim the Lord of glory such that the heart swells, the mind is alive with wonder and the eyes behold!

Republicans.....Boycott This Media Monstrosity!

The Fertile Folly Fields Of Our Congress    

       Barack Obama should have been impeached years ago. It is an understatement in that he does not have this nation's best interest at heart. I shudder to even think of who his allegiances are to. The latest absolute absurdity perpetrated upon us is the order of the Secretary of Defense (as if he or any one of these sycophants make any decisions apart from Oval Office directives) to open up all front line military positions to women. May God protect our military in spite of our utter failures to elect responsible God-fearing men and women to our government. May He make known to us our dalliances, forgive us our day dreaming and have mercy upon our feeble minds.
       I have written posts for the last few years encouraging our Congress to put an end to the State Of The Union Address, which Thomas Jefferson likened to England's Speech From The Throne. He refused to give one, nor does our Constitution require a speech... but then Jefferson....this brilliant statesman....has become a persona non grata in this wretched PC climate hasn't he? And our Constitution....the ballast for our stability and keel for firmness against the winds....has been removed as cumbersome, replaced by the editorial pages of the New York Times and Washington Post.
      Will this Speaker and this Congress once again extend an invitation to Barack Obama to celebrate his power? Probably, for they are as worthless to America as a bowling ball on a golf course.

Note: Paul Ryan did indeed extend the invitation with these words...."....it is my honor to invite you to deliver your State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, January 12, 2016 in the House Chamber."

Nineveh

Nineveh.....July, 2014

          God's word to Nineveh given through the prophet Nahum was unrelenting. It wasn't a warning as Jonah had given.... it was a proclamation of coming judgement. Nineveh was a "bloody city.....full of lies and robbery"....and a "mistress of sorceries." It had been a great and powerful city whose "merchants" were multiplied "more than the stars of heaven" but whose "shepherds slumber" while "the gates of (its) land (were) open for (its) enemies."
          It's a dichotomy. On the one hand is America's heritage....the greatest nation on this earth, that God used to spread His gospel and secure freedom and liberty for multitudes of people, but on the other hand many of our laws now mock God and attempt to keep our children away from Him. We wantonly kill the preborn and then celebrate how liberal we have become. The coup de gras is that in the future our children, in every way imaginable, through entertainments and education and in every facet of everyday life, will be coaxed, prodded and even threatened to deny God's commands to us concerning homosexuality.
          Oh yes there is still a remnant, you can see it in many churches, in our military, in young mothers who will never turn their children over to a village chieftain, in hard working fathers who teach their children to work hard and not to demand handouts as rights, and in older generations who know of America's heritage of acknowledging God's protective hand upon our nation and its people.
          We have had forty years of Jonahs, we've had a hundred years of Jonahs, we've had a hundred and fifty years of warnings but we interpret that longsufferring of God towards us as evidence that He hasn't the will or the power to bring judgement!

It Was The Sound Of The Trumpet

         I'm going to return to politics in this post and as I often do I'm adding a disclaimer of sorts at the beginning. Politics cannot get us out of the mess we are in! The damage done to us is irreversible... as I have written a number of times. The America of the textbooks of our youth is no more. God's judgement upon us is sealed. What is not known is the extent of that judgement. Surely His manifold mercies are there to be given but those mercies concern an America after it has faced the wrath of its creator. These comments may shock a new reader but I have expressed this feeling for quite some time. Our national defense as it pertains to vigilance has been decimated by this current president, and our enemies are now enabled and motivated as their window of opportunity slowly closes. Simply put, there are too many Americans with no discernment whatsoever to overcome our troubles.
         These thoughts do not endear me to fellow conservatives for they think that I am defeatist and have essentially given up. That doesn't bother me at all because I know the problems ahead and they are so enormous that criticisms will be gone from the memory when the judgements begin to unfold. Yes, I say 'begin to unfold,' for this future societal earthquake is still at this time but a rumble miles underground. Nothing short of a national repentance will save us....nothing.
         In my younger days I enjoyed CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) softball and we had a pretty good team, in fact a real good team.  Now fall came and some of the players were determined to form a basketball team also. I wasn't a part of this because my college semester had started. I do remember their first and only game though, and our top scorers. The first and second half scores were identical....40 to 2. They had lost 80 to 4!. Tom and Dave were our top scorers with two points each. Now I am here to tell you, had I been on that team it would have been at least 80 to 6! And I can tell you something else, as the minutes of that game expired I would have been diving at balls.
         We are not to quit this nation that so many gave the full measure of sacrifice for. We failed to be vigilant for a long time and are responsible for what has happened....I've written that often.....but they get no more points.
         Having said this....here is what we are looking at on the political scene: We came out of our slumber years ago and have been forced to watch and listen to the most vile distortions of truth and what America is supposed to have been that one could stand. It has been a nightmare as we watched a Marxist schmooze his way into the White House and taking further advantage of a mortally uninformed public, proceeded to dismantle the foundations of our republic. The Democrats can claim insanity, I'll sign on to that diagnosis, but the Republican elites have no such crutch. They are the true culprits through their gross inaction and deception which continues to this day!
         Then along came a man named Trump and he gave us a voice. That voice shook the poles (polls) of their big tent and sent the Democrats scurrying into the forest like the disoriented zombies that they are. Remember this though friends......for politicians can change quicker than Hillary can change her Mao pantsuits......it was the trumpet sound that reverberated across this nation and not necessarily the name Trump.

Imagine

        John Lennon once asked of us to imagine....."no heaven....no hell below us....no countries" and "no possessions." He said it was easy if we would try. Can anyone make such a request? I'd like to try.
        I'd like to ask you to picture in your mind for but a few moments a situation. You may very well have already experienced something similar in your life but hopefully not and never will! A loved one develops an addiction, it may be alcohol, or drugs or gambling or anything. You and others around you can see it but trying to warn your loved one is difficult if not impossible for he/she cannot see the danger and continues down that path of destruction. No amount of evidences, no logic or pleas to employ common sense will help! These words were few and do not do justice to the pain and tears one has to bear when in this situation.
        It would not be classified an addiction but the American people are as seemingly and hopelessly involved in something that will just as surely bring about their demise. I want to give you one passage from God's Word to us that hopefully may resonate with you. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of other such passages that I could use. I choose this one because Zephaniah prophesied to Judah after the fall of her brethren in Israel, and before the Babylonians came and burned Jerusalem and the temple and took many away captive to Babylon. The people had other gods in place right next to Yahweh! Zephaniah was writing both to Judah, to other nations, and to those in a future time, for the Great Day Of The Lord is prominent in his warnings.
        Please consider these words to the people of Judah....."...I will cut off every vestige of Baal from this place, the names of the pagan priests along with the priests..... " I want to interject here that we have our own Baals, our own gods, here in America, every bit as much as did Judah.. We also have numerous celebrated 'priests' of these gods in our entertainment industry. Zephaniah continued in his description of a people " ...who pledge loyalty to the LORD but also pledge loyalty to Milcom; .....(people) who turn back from following the Lord, who do not seek the Lord or inquire of Him...." (Milcom was most probably a god who demanded the sacrifice of children)
        These Jews had the same.....addiction.....that we have today in that we incorporate gods into our daily life for the pleasures that we get from them. We don't see them as gods but then we don't really see God as God either so both can be prominent in our homes where neither is really seen as dangerous or... in any way....holy! Nothing Zephaniah said to them could convince them that they were in trouble. This scene is repeated again and again throughout the Old Testament. If you have read this far without having exited then you also may take my advice and read these 53 verses in three chapters of Zephaniah. Once again.....this is only one small section of Scripture where, Old Testament and New, God very clearly warns us of our rebellious condition and of His coming judgements.
          I sit here and wonder if an extreme soberness might overtake you as you read descriptions of the great Day of the Lord from the end of the first chapter? I wonder if when you read...."This is the self-assured city that lives in security, that thinks to herself: I am, and there is no one besides me"... if you might see that that is what we think in America.....maybe not you or I but observe what those who rule us say, for they are supremely confident that it is man and not the myth of God that will determine our destiny, and they may see some bumps in the road but certainly no catastrophic judgement from God!
       When Zephaniah wrote of that city...."she has not obeyed; she has not accepted discipline. She has not trusted in the LORD; she has not drawn near to her God".....will you see us....even a little bit? When he writes...."The princes within her are roaring lions" will you see our ruling class who threaten us with censure? When he writes..."her judges are wolves of the night which leave nothing for the morning" will you see many of our judges who do not fear God? When he writes, "Her prophets are reckless treacherous men" will you see our godless universities and when he writes, "Her priests profane the sanctuary; they do violence to instruction".....will you see our liberal churches?
         Friends, there are great promises, assurances, balm and words of hope in Zephaniah for those who do trust in the Lord so imagine this also.....we all are very familiar with how the smartphone has become an extension of our very being, where we sometimes reference its information while walking and even driving. Imagine a time when Christians in America cannot seem to go from one place to another without stopping occasionally to read another portion of God's very Word to us! Benjamin Franklin described Philadelphia during the First Great Awakening in a similar way in that it seemed to him that one could not walk down the street without hearing psalm singing coming from this house or that house. Imagine Americans referencing biblehub.com more than Google, the Apostle Paul more than the Dow, the Gospels more than Drudge, the Psalms more than Facebook and Revelation more than the sports section! It's easy if you try.
         I'm fairly certain that you really didn't want to read a message such as this just as a loved one would not want 'lectured' on an addiction but I thank you for persevering. I want to add this last thing. If this is the first post from this web site that you have ever read you might think that I live with my head down saying "woe is me," or that I carry a sign around that reads "the end is near"? The previous post and many other writings should show that this is not the case. I never knew true joy until I knew Jesus Christ, and I write these things often for the same reason that you would risk bothering a loved one.

Brave New Year.....2016

         I've related this story a couple of times in these posts but this time it is with a specific purpose in mind. The new millennium had just begun. I was fifty years old and had returned to college to work on a MA in Higher Education at a Christian college. The twenty or so students formed a cohort and we went from one class to another through the curriculum over an eighteen month period. I finished all of the classes but did not go any further to get the degree. All that was left was a seminar of short classes and a research paper but I had achieved what I went for, that being some insight into higher education in America.
         The classes were informal and really quite impressive in the goal of educating. It was one particular class day, actually an evening, where the conversation revolved around current events and current trends in society. I was not shy in these classes and that evening I was determined as the conversation went on to give my opinion. I remember that my tone was very serious and I think that this was noticed. I wanted to give these mostly younger people the benefit of my experience. Our society, I told them, was heading to a division but more than just a division. We were being torn apart but I didn't mention that. I wanted them to know that a very serious change was taking place in America.....and it was not good. Were I to give that talk today it would be much more in-depth and specific but at the time I wanted to emphasize the seriousness of the situation more than the who, what, when, where and why.
         I was correct in my assessment of where we were going. I wish that I weren't. We are two peoples today in America that bear little resemblance to each other in not only our religious and political beliefs but in our thinking patterns. In my opinion one side functions reasonably well and the other does not, so much so that the word 'suicide' is often used to describe where we are heading as a society and as a nation. Today's post, regrettably, is similar to those thoughts from the year 2000 only the division has intensified to new levels.
         Why is it I wonder that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, both deniers of the verity of the Christian faith, wrote two books that turned out to be eerily prophetic? Those being 1984 and Brave New World of course.  They could see where we were going but did not realize that their personal beliefs were what was taking us there. Just one example of our societal deterioration would be the college campus of today. Something very unnerving is happening on some of the more elite campuses. Freedom of speech  has become the enemy....and bullying has become the method of confronting it. To make matters worse the administrators of these schools are not even attempting to stop it.
         So that is my message in this post... similar to what I told my fellow cohort members fifteen years ago. Conversation, dialogue and reason alone will not solve this for common sense has abandoned us on the one side which has few skills for reasoning and less for discerning truth, and where to them the loudest and most persistent voice claims.....no demands.....the debate trophy. An article posted on the Drudge Report as I write, written by novelist and theorist Bret Easton Ellis, describes a burgeoning societal trend where "Anyone who resists such groupthink is ruthlessly shamed."
         We have a nation of about 320 million people from all walks of life and from the urban to the rural and in between. Should God, in His infinite wisdom, will it to move upon our hearts and minds these rebellions will not succeed nor grow. Should He decide otherwise we will fall directly into the abyss. We cannot pray with the necessary ardor if we do not realize the extent of peril that we are in. That ardor in prayer will eventually come but it would be in a time of a complete breakdown of law and order where hate would be so commonplace that it would not even be recognized as such. So if my words resonate with you....pray now and with ardor, and with consistency...as if grabbing the hem of our Lord's tunic and refusing to let go without His healing our hearts and minds. And consider the words of Jesus from Matthew 24 where in direct response to a question about about the sign of His coming responded with....."Take heed that no one deceives you (for) you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.....and then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.....lawlessness will abound (and) the love of many will grow cold."

A Stark Contrast

          As I look over seven 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'..... and 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 their themes.....'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.