Resolutions

         I probably spent ten or fifteen minutes earlier today reading humorous bumper stickers on a spinning rack at a gift shop. I laughed at just about every one of the forty some stickers and bought three. HAS ANYONE SEEN MY KEYS is going on my locker at work....THINK!...It's Not Illegal Yet... is going on the back of my truck above the URL of these posts, and the third is the topic of this post.....JESUS IS COMING....(LOOK BUSY).
         This is alluding to a verse in the 24th chapter of Matthew, the same chapter of which I mentioned in my post of yesterday! I'll give the full five verses here....
         "...Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes."
         Friends...these are not my words! These are the words of the Bible....and the specific topic is the last days, but the command is to all Christians....in every generation....from every century, for neither do we know when our day will come! Whether it be the Lord's coming or our departing, will we be found in Him....in Christ.....born anew....by grace....through faith....clothed in His righteousness? Various translations render the first words of the 42nd verse....keep watch...or stay awake...or be on the alert. May these be our new year's resolutions if we are so inclined to make some!

Glorious Wrinkles And Wonderful Aches And Pains

          Having had no idea what to write about as I booted up the computer, a recent picture of a famous actor came to mind and this is what followed:

          It's something that is peculiar to me and nowadays it happens more and more as more and more celebrities from my youth are photographed, and those photographs make their way into newspapers or on television. I'm sure that I notice their aging faces even more than most others do. I'll stare at the wrinkles or the gaunt faces. I'll then spend more than a few moments in a spontaneous meditation on this passage through life that all must take.
          This isn't just a curiosity on my part, it's rather part of my Christian worldview. God has given man a mind that is capable of the most wondrous things, while at the same time the fall of man in the Garden of Eden provided us with proclivities to do and think the dumbest of things. Either way we have roughly seventy years on average to go back and forth in those endeavors. In that time, usually the earlier years, we are faced with the decision of whether or not to seek God.
          Well, I don't need to describe the many and varied options for we all know them and most of us have lived one, two or even three of them. I myself had a mixture of humility and arrogance in my quest. I knew, being raised Roman Catholic, that there was a holy and righteous God, and I desired to know more of Him but I would attempt this in my way and in my own good time.
           Sometime in early 1982 that simple quest began to grow into a passion of sorts. I would leave Mass on Sunday and gather the various Catholic newspapers from the church sanctuary. Then my wife and I would go home and I spread them out on the dining room table and read every word.....surely there were clues and maybe even answers in them. I don't even remember if we owned a Bible at the time but if we did I did not consult it.
         The Academy Award winning film Chariots Of Fire made a great impression on me, so much so that I entered the viewing of it in my James Fixx's  Runner's Day-by-Day Log and Calendar of March 5th, 1982. Who was this man....Eric Liddell? He spoke of God so very intelligently and with such a powerful reverence. Could this God that I was looking for be as knowable to me as He was to this Christian Olympic runner and missionary? If so....I desperately wanted that knowledge.
        I began to regularly visit a local Christian bookstore, unfamiliar with literally everything in it. One day I picked up a paperback titled Evidence That Demands A Verdict by a writer named Josh McDowell. It was in outline form which encouraged me in that it was like a textbook....and since it was like a textbook then it must have facts, and that was what I was looking for. When I finished reading that book I was convinced that God did exist and that Jesus Christ was his son. I was also convinced that the Bible was no ordinary book.
        I began asking questions of men who called themselves Born Again. They had been where I then was. Almost before I knew it I was calling Jesus my Lord and my Savior. If I had known then how long it would take before I fully understood what happened on that wooden cross, on that rocky hill outside of the walls of Jerusalem, and if I knew how many wrong turns I would make over many years, I might surely have become discouraged. If I knew then that I had been hanging over the precipice of hell all of my life, held above it only by a scarlet thread, I may have become too fearful to press on. If I had known then that in my evangelistic zeal that I was still only a summer soldier for Christ, protected by his grace in my infancy, I might have sank back and sought out the safest of havens. But I knew none of this. His Word was opened up just enough at that time for me to see, if only in part, the majesty of Christ.... know that I was forgiven and granted mercy....and this was indeed enough!
       So today I almost stare at those faces of men and women, many of whom found a different kind of treasure, a treasure of fame and fortune. We, my then idols and myself, have aged together. They have either searched for God or have not.... had either weighed all of the evidence available to them or not....had either humbled themselves or not... and had either made a decision to fall at the foot of the cross on Calvary in humiliation, repentance and praise....or had chosen instead to enjoy the temporal treasures that this world can provide and hope for the best. Seventy years...sixty-six in my case... had gone by so quickly. I show that age on my face and feel it in my body, but they are glorious wrinkles and wonderful aches and pains for they evidence the nearness of seeing Christ in His fullness! I had not been given the riches and the fame that I earlier had so much desired. I had been given infinitely more valuable treasures.....mercy....and forgiveness....and the sure hope of eternity with the Kings of Kings!
       

Memorials....Redux

         The following post is from February 16, 2009. As you know the Washington National Cathedral and the Washington Monument were badly damaged in an earthquake in August of 2011. Was that earthquake a message to us? I think it may very well have been. I love America and that sentiment is written throughout these posts but I love it as the gift that has been given to Americans and to the world. It is the Gift-Giver that deserves our adoration! God will either save America for His purposes or He will let us fall in our own delusion. He will not be mocked nor can we convince Him to see it our way. We will either prostrate ourselves before Him or He will prostrate us before our enemies. I bring this post back today as the Washington D. C. area is in the news as a blizzard bears down on it.

Memorials

         I visit Washington D.C. occasionally, even though it is essentially a giant Masonic symbol complete with an Obelisk in the middle. There is a similarity here with the temples of ancient Athens. As you walk up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial, Abe's eyes stare down at you. In fact, written above President Lincoln's marble statue are the words "In this temple, as in the hearts of the people, for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined..." I'll walk slowly and reverently in the "V" shaped Vietnam War Memorial. There was controversy with this architecture at first, for being cut into the ground seemed to give an aura of defeat to it but there is no defeat at that memorial, the defeat in Vietnam is in the halls of Congress and universities. I'm solemn when I walk around the new WWII Memorial and currently I'm having a difficult time reading through a book on the Bataan Death March...man's inhumanity towards man! The Korean War Memorial is also a favorite.
         My father is buried across the Potomac in Arlington National Cemetery. When there I also visit Robert Dean Stethem's grave site. He was the heroic young Navy diver that terrorists murdered during a TWA hijacking in 1985 and then threw his body out of the plane and onto the tarmac. I also  find myself looking up at Robert E. Lee's home that was confiscated during the war and think of those who lost their lives in that conflict.
         The Apostle Paul walked among the temples of Athens and came upon an altar with the inscription..."To the unknown god." He then said to the Athenians..."what therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." Our temple to the unknown god is the Washington National Cathedral, the site of state funerals for Presidents Eisenhower, Reagan and Ford. Congress had designated it a National House of Prayer. Our memorials of brick and stone have a place but it is in front of our pulpits where we should worship.  Should we ever realize this, the Washington National Cathedral would become an oddity with more relevance to ancient Athens than the founding of the United States of America.

Ship Of State

        The following was jotted down in only a few minutes. I did no research on terms. I simply want to extend a message in this little story, for the ship in question's fate is similar to America. Yes...we are in that bad of shape! We, the passengers, are not being informed of the particulars, so basically we are just a little annoyed because our plans are being put on hold:


         Captain Miller was leaning over weather reports that had come in over an hour earlier. There was some concern on his face but if the ship remained on schedule they might outrun the winds. It was 2100 hrs and he had just returned to the bridge from dinner where he shared the Captain's Table with some very influential stock market brokers heading to London on what else....money business. The waves were about ten feet and the winds calm at the moment. They were exactly half way across the Atlantic....the ship, its 300 passengers and 45 crew.
         The hatch opened quickly and Lieutenant Crosby entered appearing very annoyed. "Captain.... we have lost all radio transmissions capability.... we cannot send out anything. The problem appears to be electrical and we are on it but I'm told that if the transformers are shorted out as they appear to be that it could take up to 24 hours before we can transmit again!" "24 hours!"  The captain repeated his last words..."24 hours without contacting anyone? Well, let's hope that we do not have any emergencies Lieutenant."
        Captain Miller ran his fingers through his greying hair and just as Lieutenant Crosby left the bridge Lieutenant Smith entered...."Captain...we have a rudder problem. After we completed the 15 degree turn north the rudder froze in place." Captain Miller walked up to the wheel, look over the sea and nodded his head...." I can see that....all engines stop." A seaman repeated the order to the engine room. Miller turned and looked at the four men with in the bridge...."No radio transmissions.....no rudder....this trip was going along too smoothly."
       First Officer Martin Malkin spoke up...."Did you hear that?"   The captain looked off to his left and then to his right and answered that he heard nothing but Smith nodded..."I did...it sounded like a muffled explosion."   Captain Miller looked over at Seaman Thomas...."Have all stations report in."   The Seaman did so and one by one answers came in. "Nothing from the engine room.   Lieutenant Smith, go down there and see what's happening."
       It was 2115 hours. The captain had been back on the bridge for only 15 minutes and the ship was falling apart. A young officer entered the bridge with a returning Lieutenant Smith. He was covered with dirt and oil and appeared in shock.....Smith spoke for him...."Explosion in the engine room Captain. Everyone is reported for but they can't even see for all the smoke right now."
       Captain Miller walked back over to the weather reports he was reviewing only a few minutes earlier with then little concern...now there was great concern for they were not going to be able to outrun the storm even if the engine and the rudder were repaired quickly. Lieutenant Smith spoke first...."Captain, should I make an announcement to the passengers?" The Captain  paused for a moment or two and said...."No....there's no need in worrying them."
       Three other officers were summoned to the bridge and the group sat around a table to consider the problems and make a plan. The ship was now beginning to rock ever so slightly. Captain Miller stood up quickly and asked of no one in particular....."Gentlemen...are we listing a little to the aft?"  Indeed it seemed so, that the ship's bow was a little bit higher than the stern. Just then another seaman burst through the hatch..."Captain....Captain....we are taking on water...A seam in the port side of the engine room has ruptured!"   "How much water?" the Captain shot back immediately?   "Sir.... a  lot of water....we had to get out of the engine room!"
        Captain Miller shouted to Lieutenant Smith...."Smith...radio an S.O......" he stopped mid-sentence for he remembered that there was to radio transmission capability. "Lieutenant Bonham....get the lifeboats uncovered....just uncovered. If anyone asks why, tell them....tell them it's a crew practice."
       Seaman Waverly, the ships cook knocked on the hatch unaware of the emergencies that were going on....""Enter!"  Waverly spoke slowly....."Captain, we have a bit of a problem.....a serious one though.....a 6" water pipe broke in the stockroom....." he hesitated and Captain Miller roughly yelled....."And?"   "Sir before we could get the leak isolated, all of the stock was destroyed.....the only thing that we have left is the refrigerated food and.....and...."  "And what else"...shouted the Captain again.   "And there seems to be an electrical problem with the refrigeration. Unless we get that fixed, we only have one meal left for all on board."
         There was no panic or even hesitation from Captain Miller...."Make the announcement Lieutenant Smith.  Make the call to emergency stations and then tell the passengers that we are temporally stuck.....with damage that will require assistance.....don't mention the food or anything else."
         Captain Miller did not hear the door open. He turned to look over the seas and Doctor Johnson, the ship's doctor, was behind him, also unaware of all the problems except the one that he had to report. "Sir, It appears that you are very busy but I have something you need to know."  Captain Miller could not believe his ears. He didn't have any idea what problem the doctor had but it was obvious that there was one....yet another emergency....was this even possible. It was now only 37 minutes from the time that the captain was looking over weather reports and it seems like the world had caved in.  Did he even want to hear the doctor's report?  He did pause long enough for Doctor Johnson to continue....."Captain...we have had an unusually high sick call the past 24 hours. I did not think it necessary to mention it to you but it appears to be some sort of violent bacterial strain of some sort. One patient...a passenger.... has made a dramatic turn and is fighting for his life.....three others have the same symptoms. This seems to be highly contagious sir."  He paused and then asked "Captain....is it too late to turn back to New York?"
        The ship was listing more now...surely the passengers were aware of it. Surely they were aware that we were not going anywhere. There would be panic soon. The waves were nearing fifteen feet and getting worse by the minute. A young lieutenant whose name the Captain had not memorized as of yet ran through the already open hatch and almost slipped.   Apparently he knew that the ship was taking on water and had been charged with removing the covers from the lifeboats....."Captain....I don't know how this has happened......I signed off on the papers in port.....I didn't visually verify it but was told in no uncertain terms that....." "Spit it out Lieutenant" shouted the Captain. "Captain. The guernsey chains had been removed in port to be weight inspected......somehow they were never put back on......we cannot lower the lifeboats if we need to!"

Short List

          The hatred for Ted Cruz is palpable. The dislike from others that abounds for Donald Trump has more to do with the threats from his success than for who he is. The hate for Cruz goes far deeper and is directly related to his Christian faith.
           I've written about this before, not as it relates to Ted Cruz but as it relates to the liberal faith. Yes.....liberalism is a religious belief. It's the belief in man being dependent on nothing but himself. He may profess belief in God but that faith is not a threat to his conscience... rather it is a soothing balm.
         Christianity, Biblical-Orthodox Christianity that is, does not give an individual the luxury of defining their own God, and it joyfully acknowledges that God is sovereign over the heavens and the earth...and over everything in them...for He created them... and He is King over all the kings of this earth! The Bible is considered dangerous to the liberal mind if one ventures further into it than generic bible studies, Easter services and praying before meals. One must be vary careful when reading it for there is a double-edged sword within. Guilt is the hell of this liberal faith and one must be saved from it. Thus Ted Cruz is hated, for as president his Christian faith would be evident in every speech, every action and every appointment that he makes.
       The American consciousness is damaged beyond repair. It would have to be healed and there is only one Healer... who we have rejected. We are soulless...we are mindless and our spirituality is pagan. Nothing short of national repentance can give hope to heal these failings, and it has become painfully evident after all the warnings given to us by God that it would now take a national catastrophe... a cataclysmic catastrophe.....to even get our attention.
       As for this election.....as I wrote yesterday....we cannot ignore it. Our vote has to be cast. It is a duty. If one believes that America can turn itself around through the election of a strong leader as president then there are a few candidates out there....and Donald Trump is one of them. On the other hand if one knows that only a national repentance, general awakening and a humbling of ourselves before our Creator holds any hope for mercies to America then that list is much shorter.

Are You Not Hearing

The following post is from this past July:  

         I surely don't want to get in the habit of hearing a joke and then putting it in these posts. I think that I've only done that twice throughout the years but I smiled at one today and want to use it to segue into the message of this particular post that is more than serious. It seems that a man went for a checkup to his doctor and while there told him that he was concerned that his wife may be losing her hearing. The doctor suggested that he perform a little experiment to see how much hearing loss she had. He told the man to come to about ten feet of his wife and ask her a question. If she doesn't hear him go a little closer and ask, and if she still doesn't hear him move closer. And if if she still does not hear him, go right up to her and ask the question. The man went home and his wife was standing at the kitchen counter preparing dinner..."Hello honey, what's for dinner?" He moved a little closer and said "Hello honey, I'm home. What's for dinner?" Still nothing. He came closer still..."Hello honey, what's for dinner?" Finally he went right up to her and tapped her on the shoulder..."Hello honey, I'm home. What's for dinner?" She turned around and said "For the fourth time......pot roast."
        God is speaking. Are you not hearing? I'll tell you what I'm hearing, and many many others I might add, one of whom is Billy Graham who has been relaying to us what he hears for decades! God's judgements on our nation have begun and they are increasing in intensity!
        Our financial system is headed for a total collapse over the debt and/or various bubbles we have created by splashing the soapy water used only to whitewash the outside of the tombs we have constructed that are full of, as Jesus said in Matthew 23:27 "....bones of the dead and everything unclean." And this is the least of our problems!. We have torn down every hedge of protection, opened every gate in the wall, accommodated every pagan custom, customized the Gospel of Jesus Christ to fit our desires, set up Ashtoreth poles, sacrificed our children to Moloch and worshipped the golden bull market...excuse me...golden calf. Yet we party on oblivious to the words mene, mene, tekel, upharsin etched into the newly built 'wall of separation between church and state.'
        One cannot hear God's warnings to us amidst the din of applause, the cacophony of the marketplace and the fortissimo of our entertainments. Even in the quiet of of our meditations we run from the sound of His voice. We do not hear because we do not want to hear. We plug our ears at the mention of His holiness and shout down those who would read verbatim from His Word, and just such words would be these from the first chapter of Proverbs:
         " If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you. I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I will also laugh at your calamity......."
       

Step Into The Lion's Den

        It's dirty work but it has to be done. We cannot ignore those tenets of our Constitution that not only enable us but oblige us to chose our own leaders. Even though our political process has long since devolved into farce.....it still has to be done. We have a former First Lady, former Senator and former Secretary of State who by all rights should have ignominiously exited government 'service' long ago, who may still, as unbelievable as it is, become one party's nominee for president. We have a socialist pushing her to the limits on this. The third contestant on the podium has admitted to being a former Democrat mayor of a major American city and now in his new job has the nickname...The Rock n' Roll Governor.....and we have two or three others making plans to scurry in and steal the cheese should the trap snap shut on the tails of the current candidates.
         On the other side of the aisle we have a gambling casino billionaire who rightly rose to the top of the polls, being the only one to literally shout the grievances of the people, who now seems to think that rather than being a part of the conservative base... that he owns it.....which he would find out very quickly that he doesn't. We have a good man....a gifted surgeon....ridiculed as a bumpkin. We have a crown prince... monies falling out of of his pants pockets... waiting for power brokers to work their magic once again. We have two levels for their debates which is absolutely inane, with one man, as smart as we can produce, relegated to the lower level. We have another who towers above the rest in wisdom...and because of this quality he has the most enemies.
         Should we get a legitimate nominee, indeed should God even give us time to continue this charade of being an informed citizenry, that nominee may be the most unfortunate of the bunch because he'll be in the lion's den, and unless God has a continuing purpose for this greed infested, narcissism contaminated, zombie culture remnant of what was once Western Civilization, he would occupy that office during the nation's demise and then likely be blamed for it.
       As necessary as it is, it is not the Oval Office that we need to pray for as much as it is the Christian pulpit that utterly refuses to relay God's warnings of judgement. It's not the Congress that needs to repent of its arrogance as much as it is the congregation for its lack of vigilance in letting these people do what they do, and it's not the flag that needs raised as much as the Word of God, for if that corporate Christian church, from region to region and town to town and street corner to street corner had any vital signs at all we would not be of the culture, society and nation that we are today.

Conservatism Itself Saves No One

         The following post was written on November 30th of 2008. Barack Obama would soon be inaugurated president:

          I agonized for a long time over how the Christian is to deal with politics. I read books on the subject and certainly went to Scripture. I've been on both sides of the issue. Edmund Burke wrote "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Burke was not a Christian, and I am not "good," but the concept and the logic still hold weight. Our nation is crumbling fast and most of us are the proverbial frog in the kettle. The local news from the metropolitan city that I live near started their telecast last night with three different killings among young black people. Yesterday's paper had a picture of two beautiful young children joined at the head while the surgeons were dismayed that nothing could be done for them. Every day the sufferings of people are there to remind us of the fallen condition of this world. We say that we yearn for Jesus to come back but do we?      
          Martin Luther once said when asked what he would do if he knew that the Lord was coming back the next day, "I would plant a tree." In the final analysis, we cannot quit on this nation. If people's sufferings are to be alleviated, if we are to return to at least being a "God-fearing" nation we have to seek God's mercy and try our best to be good and responsible citizens. This blog title has the word "conservative" in it to get the attention of who it is meant for but conservatism itself will save no one! Our hope is not in princes or their military power. Christians, who have been relegated to being part of the "religious right," must remind themselves of this every day. This does not mean that we do not support a political party of ardently work for its success but it does mean that we never alter our ethical beliefs or compromise that which is our only hope... the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
          We lost our moorings in this long before we lost this last election. Our churches are too often social gatherings, some with political causes meant to assuage the guilt of not knowing who we really are in Christ. Our pulpits mention Jesus every week but rarely preach His cross for they have lost faith in the power of preaching the blood shed on Calvary, instead preferring to give biblical advice on how to live. I stumble into church every week to hear the atoning power of the blood of Christ and of what He has done for me and how He will keep this poor wretched sinner despite my gravitation to dally with the world. More than anything we need to pray that ministers enter their pulpits, look over the congregation, and set forth to lay out the glories and majesties of Jesus Christ present in every book of the Bible. Only having done that can they begin to exegete the passages on how we are to live.

Congratulations

          The last two elections for president were Theater of the Absurd in that there was really only one candidate in each....John McCain and Mitt Romney....and they both lost. Barack Obama was not a candidate in the normal sense. Yes he campaigned, votes were cast and counted, and he became the 44th president of the United States of America, but the American public, enough of them anyway, were living in dream world during that election cycle. Educated through Hollywood movies, tutored by comedians and then bought, bundled and sold by a political machine without a soul and without a conscience, they must now live in the real world that they created.
          Barack Obama was the bait in the single greatest confidence game ever perpetrated upon the American public. I have to wonder if in their quieter moments liberals are happy with how this has all turned out up until now? It's one thing to talk a good game in a ten minute talking point filled conversation but another thing altogether to actually look around and see America as it is today....a people that resembles more a Balkanized state than a melting pot and a third world banana republic more than a constitutional republic. And what did they get out of the deal....two men can get married and Obamacare. Congratulations!
         I also wonder if the Republican establishment is happy? They should have impeached this president years ago. Seeking to perpetuate their own congressional fiefdoms they now find themselves ruled by a tyrant on one side and despised by the people on the other as the pillars of America's heritage collapse upon them.
        We are watching history being made. Where once one could only go to history books to read of the collapse of an empire, we can now video the collapse of our own country on our cellphones, or one could make book on what catastrophe will hit first. No, the only ones who could possibly be happy are those who have no quiet times to ponder the significance of what is happening in our country and the entire world.
      

"....As Bound With Them"

       The Big Short.....It sounds like a Humphrey Bogart film doesn't it? Bogart's and Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep may even have prompted Michael Lewis to name his book and thus the movie as he did. I saw the film this afternoon. It's a montage of long clips moving from one character to another for roughly 130 minutes. Christian Bale plays one, Brad Pitt another and there other actors whose names I read in the news but am not familiar with their work. It moves very fast and there is a lot of suspense. The language is rough and apparently there is humor for the audience laughed more than a few times, but to me it was....dark.....not the theater but the message.
       I'm surprised that I don't have a sore neck as I write for I sat in the second row, far right seat. I had to sit kind of catty-corner and look up to my left as a dog sitting at your feet might have to as he looks up to see what you are snacking on. It didn't matter though for the screenplay kept me riveted in that position.
       The subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-10 and the accompanying collapse of much of the world's economy was the subject of the film. Christian Bale's character never meets Brad Pitt's who never meets the other major name actor's characters. Some of the names have been changed but all the personalities are real. Surely there were more that saw the housing bubble rising prior to the bust but the film follows only a few that tried to make money on the collapse that they saw on the horizon. Only it wasn't quite as easy as that because the banks refused to play along with the scenario. By all rights they should have dropped the ratings on certain financial entities enabling these chosen few to score big but they didn't. They, the banks, knew what the situation was but tried to protect themselves by ignoring laws and ethics and everything else. So here is the suspense....do the main protagonists make money in the end or lose everything?  You can Google all the participants after the movie if you wish for a more detailed answer than what is given.
         I wanted to see this film because of the content but as the action, and it was action, progressed, I was dragged through the muck and the mire also for this is my country and my culture and society. The stain is on most of us and I'm no exception, for putting money into a 401k and forgetting about it does not absolve one of the responsibility on where and how that money is put to use. The tumor in the system is malignant. You cannot invest today in a sound and up-and-coming company as you once could for everything is too intertwined. You are at the mercy of those who live in a world of numbers. It's a Roulette Wheel.....black 17....you lose, or red....9....you win.
         Proverbs 22:16 is but one of many...many...verses in God's Holy Word that address the situation that the film depicts:

    "Oppressing the poor
          to enrich oneself,
      and giving to the rich-      
          both lead only to poverty."

         The assumption here is...'in the end' it leads to poverty, and includes a poverty of the soul.

Winter At Dusk

          The living room-dining room-kitchen and breakfast room in our 109 year old house are arranged in a circle. It's five minutes to midnight and as I write my wife is walking fast in circles....around and around. On the last pass I asked her to read these two sentences I had just written but she put her hand up and said..." I can't right now. I only have five minutes to get my 10,000 steps in!" This steps counter/calorie counter app is driving me up a wall. Earlier she asked me to take her iPhone as I walked the dog. Isn't that cheating? She said that she was just kidding but I know someone who attached his Fitbit to the dog as it ran around the yard.
          Oh well, we all have our peculiarities. A few hours ago I looked outside and it was beginning to snow.....the first snow of the season. Dusk was setting in and there would be less than an hour of light left. I hurriedly put on my boots, grabbed my truck keys and told my wife that I was going for a drive and would not be long. She knew what I was up to. The scene outside, bleak and dreary to most, was too beautiful to pass up.
          Now, I can enjoy summer and we often go on car trips just to see the autumn colored leaves but the chill of gusting winds over barren hillsides, particularly at dusk as a blue hue settles over the valleys, is the most beautiful and calming of sights....and feels. I love the brisk walk to the vehicle, pulling the coat closer to me as my breath is visible. A chill like this, even frigid weather, makes me feel more alive, for one can become lost in a daydream on a sunny summer day or walk aimlessly while creating thoughts in the fall but one cannot but become alive in the winter chill. One can admire the creation of God in a sunrise or sunset or in the multi-colored grandeur of a flower garden but one actually converses with the Creator in the starkness of a blistery winter evening.
          The leaves have not only fallen but have disappeared by now and I can see what was hidden over the summer....houses with warm families inside....buildings and shacks.....rocks and streams that I never knew were there. I was now on our parkway...sipping a McDonald's coffee. I'm sure that even Thoreau would have stopped for a latte, had it been available to him, before heading off to Walden Pond
          The clouds are ominously dark and fast moving over a slate gray sky. In weather like this there always has to be some place to go....someplace warm.....with friendly people inside.....and maybe a fire.  One does not waste a beautiful evening like this with a trip to Walmart. One saves that trip for the sun...or the darkness of night. No, the gusting winds, bare trees and earthen colors are a wake-up call that one is alive, that God created a reality behind the beauty of autumn leaves or the dazzling colors brought out by the sun, and one cannot see His warnings if one only gazes at the creation and does not feel it.
           Darkness came quickly and I texted my wife that I would be home in fifteen minutes. I know that she will hear the text for the iPhone would mostly assuredly be in her pocket as she finds something to do where she has to walk.

Empty Seats

       Barack Obama will display an empty seat at tomorrow's State of the Union address to symbolize the victims of gun violence. This is a 100% Leftist tactical maneuver and 0% compassion. In response, 240 republicans should leave their seats empty at that address symbolic of the 240 years since the writing of our Declaration of Independence that set into motion this great American Experiment that is under assault by this president and his administration.

Speech From The Throne     

       Thomas Jefferson refused to give one. The Constitution did not require one and therefore he would have no part in it for it reminded him too much of England's Speech From The Throne. He was right.
        Next Tuesday, January 12th, the House Sergeant at Arms will once again enter the chamber of the House of Representatives and announce in a booming voice...."Mister Speaker, the President of the United States" All eyes will turn to the rear of the hall and Barack Hussein Obama. He will slowly make his way forward to the Speaker's rostrum shaking hands and kissing a couple of admirers from the Democrat side of the aisle. He will then ply his trade.....deception.
        I'm writing of course about the State Of The Union address. All that our Constitution requires is that 'information' on the State of the Union be given to the Congress but we have permitted it to be turned into a Speech from the Throne. Republicans in our Congress should have, years ago, demanded that the Speaker of the House give no more invitations to President Obama as he ignores our Constitution in his attempt to fulfill his promise of..."fundamentally transforming the United States of America."

The Cost Of Deferring

November, 2015

         It's an old joke that I'm sure you have heard at one time or another. I'll change it slightly to fit this post. It begins as a man falls off of a cliff and is hanging onto a limb. He is frantically yelling for someone to help him.....Is anybody up there? A deep voice responds...This is God. The man pauses and yells....Is anybody else up there? We want God present, sort of, but no excessive rules or demands or anything like that. We visit His house regularly but He's like Jay Gatsby who holds lavish parties but no one ever sees him. We talk to him on occasion, sort of, Our Father who art in Heaven....blah, blah, blah, or thank you Lord for this food. And then there are those times when we are in trouble. We tell Him how much faith we have in him.....but it's kind of like a corporate CEO telling his employees that he has faith in them as he devises schemes to pick their pocket.
         If only that nagging conscience did not remind that if God is....God....the 'holy' God that the Bible proclaims.....and I am man...the 'sinful' man that the Bible proclaims......then surely I cannot really meet Him and live! So we either make Him less holy or us less sinful. Either works! We are lukewarm towards God in America...neither hot or cold. There's a line from that popular 1998 movie You've Got Mail where Tom Hanks character is paging through an expensive old book. When the bookstore employee describes why the book is so special, Hanks responds....So that's why it costs so much....the employee corrects him with....That's why it's worth so much. We see the cost of discipleship and walk away. If only we saw the value we would run to it yelling, as Bunyan's Christian.....Life, Life, eternal life.
         We are, many of us anyway, familiar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's dictum....and the title of his book.....The Cost Of Discipleship....and we in America may be about to find out the truth in a statement in that book....The messengers of Jesus will be hated to the end of time. They will be blamed for the division which rends cities and homes. Jesus and his disciples will be condemned on all sides for undermining family life, and for leading the nation astray; they will be called crazy fanatics and disturbers of the peace. The disciples will be sorely tempted to desert their Lord. But the end is also near, and they must hold on and persevere until it comes...
         I'm no Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I'm just one who knows that he was right. We have an idea what the cost of discipleship is and it's easy to defer that cost, but we should also know the cost of deferring that discipleship! Just one cost would be loss of discernment. Here's an example:
         The following is from an article written by Emily Yahr of the Washington Post titled....Five Things 'The Hunger Games' Franchise Brought To The World. Here is #5..."A RENEWED EXCITEMENT ABOUT Y-A (young adult) BOOKS IN A POST-HARRY POTTER WORLD.....The Hunger Games is about children and teens sent into the arena to kill each other, so it's just a bit darker than "Harry Potter," the other series that reminded kids to love reading....but hey, at least they're reading!"

Can't Wait For Tomorrow!

         Well, tomorrow is a another big big day here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and many other places! Personally I plan on getting up early to prepare. I already have my clothes laid out.... a pair of black slacks and a gold shirt. Fortunately I only live about 15 minutes away so there should be no trouble finding a parking space. One of these days I'm going to have to buy a seat cushion for those benches get a little hard after the first hour or so but really.....so what! I have absolutely no doubt about the victory. It's a long hard road and travelling over it you win some and lose some but it is well worth the effort and I shall ever be thankful for the day that this all began. As usual I expect the beginning to be tough but I'll be teary-eyed with joy at the end, enough so to last the entire day and on into the coming week where I will go to work as I wait for the same time next week.
        It's been a hard week and I have failed many times throughout it but renewal will come as I sit on that pew and hear the glories of Jesus Christ proclaimed once again. I'll hear of others who walked this same path and are now with their Savior and their King. I'll almost be able to hear their shouts of encouragement...and hopefully a cheer or two. Yes, it is a hard road but the directions are very clear and there are delightful meadows and gorgeous vistas all along the way. Yes, tomorrow is Sunday here in Western Pennsylvania.....the Lord's Day! If you are confused at what I'm talking about....you don't know what you're missing.

Our Urban Frontier

         The single biggest issue in the debate on gun control should be the Constitution of the United States. It was vital to the founders of our nation that the freedoms won were never to be lost....either the freedom to live where one chooses, worship how one desires, and express the thoughts that one wants to express....or the freedom to own private property. The Constitution protected all of these and if the Constitution itself was to come under attack than all of the above were to be the means for protecting it.
         In the early days of our nation's history one was safer in the city than on the violent frontier. Firearms were not an issue in my youth but they are today as our society now has a violent urban frontier. We had no worries then in the United States about being ruled by a dictator.....we have those worries now. We have returned to our roots not only in the need for personal protection, but as England once experienced... tyranny has come from abroad, is dissolving the Parliament, taking over the church and threatening those who dissent.
         Our Founding Fathers knew that we would need protections in retaining our liberty and freedom so our Constitution was written and included in it was the right to bear arms. They also knew that we would have to be vigilant and informed but here all that they could do was to warn. We are thus today forced to discuss gun control with those who neither fully understand or particularly value freedom in the terms mentioned above.
         A president such as Barack Obama is what Thomas Jefferson worried about and it's no coincidence that recent attempts have been made to discredit the author of our Declaration of Independence. I listened to this current president say that no one wants to take away your guns and actually had to sit back for a moment in amazement that he uses the same phrases as in his previous lies, only changing the object of the sentence. The intellect of the American public has become like that of a young child who can easily pick up on how to use a smartphone but cannot discern predators on that smartphone.
       These are the primary issues on gun control but the Left wants to bypass them and play on the emotions of an uninformed public much of which sincerely thinks that gun sales are related to the violence, but Barack Obama's tears are fake These architects of a Godless society with a greatly diminishing self-control and a lawless White House, trained as they were by Saul Alinksy's Rules For Radicals, were far more influenced by the Communist Manifesto.

And Thus Begins

            I awoke from a restless night of mostly tossing and turning but as sometimes happens my eyes opened and my mind was immediately fixed on the day ahead....in this instance.... the Lord's Day. Whether it was the tossing and turning or the reading I had done prior to going to bed or the increasingly ominous headline news of the day... my thoughts this morning were in the form of a prayer.
            I asked that God might open our minds as to the evil that this our president continually inflicts upon us, that He might make us acutely aware of his real intentions and even possibly his true allegiances.
            I asked that God would also make known to us how we ourselves are complicit in the overbearing culture of greed that permeates seemingly every major 'for profit' entity in this nation, and how we are culpable in the deteriorating security of our country, and that because of our intellectual laziness, selfishness and pride in electing those who nonchalantly lie and condescend to us that we would realize that have no one else to blame for our sordid state.
            I asked that these epiphanies would come from the pulpits....that many of those men would speak words they had not prepared, but as the Spirit spoke through Balaam, and as Caiaphas prophesied unawares that Jesus would die for those who were His, that they would proclaim the imminent judgement of God upon this world.
            I prayed lastly in those few moments that we would also see this day the heavens filled with the glories of the approaching King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that we might hear the trumpet and envision the myriads of mighty angels that are with Him. I prayed that this might be the day that the mists, the fog, and the smoke of the battle that we have been in are blown away, and that we might awake from our slumber, hear the growling and snarling of the enemy and smell the sulfur of his lair but that with bated breath we would look to our Savior and solemnly yet joyfully offer praise to the name that is above all names with the reverence that it is due.
        All this came to mind within a few minutes. I glanced at the clock and had overslept, then hurried in preparing to hear His Word preached which I heard with great thankfulness....and thus  begins not only another week but a new year.

Rude Awakenings

          There wasn't a lot of hope when Chuck Hagel was named Secretary of Defense by Barack Obama even though he was a Republican. Time proved this pessimism out for he always looked haggard and sounded naive. He eventually resigned from that job just as Leon Panetta and Robert Gates had. He recently gave a lengthy interview and in it shed additional light on the Department of Defense and Obama's inner circle micromanagement of it. This followed similar opinions of the former Secretaries.
           Barack Obama knows very well what is going to happen when he leaves office. Books will be written from all directions telling of a president that was not disengaged as it appeared to some but very active, only covertly so, through his inner circle who heavy-handedly relayed his demands to cabinet heads, generals and bureaucrats.
         This president's actions concerning Islamic terrorism are mistakenly seen as inaction. He wants this Caliphate to come about and doing little to stop it will promote its success. He wants Israel to be neutralized. I do not believe that any of those dutifully towing the line in this administration know of his true intentions. He doesn't believe a word of this Climate Change nonsense but has an EPA director that does, so she can be very useful in accomplishing his goals that have nothing to do with the earth's climate. His Homeland Security director is equally in the dark. His Vice-President is a dupe as is John Kerry, both chosen because they were perceived as harmless.
         Barack Obama has one more year left. He's not going to be very well liked after this is all over and he understands that. He looks like he's having a good time but deep down within he must tremble for he also knows very well that he has lost control of what he started. He has named so many people to important positions for political expediency that he will someday wish that they had some abilities. He emboldened Vladimir Putin and before this is all over may very well have to turn to the generals he effectively disenfranchised.  He has no control over Iran and he believed his own false words on protecting us from terrorists.
         When the days come that demand strong leadership he will be sorely reminded that he has none and never had any beyond implementing the tenets from Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals. The liberal media will not take kindly to him after the truth comes out. Celebrities will no longer want their picture taken with him and the youth will mock him when they see the future in store for them, and they will thus long for the one they once had and ignorantly protested against.

What Seest In Me Lord

The following is from November of 2011:

What seest in me Lord,
what makest Thou stay thy hand,
why dost thou give Thy ear to a clanging symbol,
why give light to a worm?

My years pass ere so quickly
and I will never be able to pay,
for even a day in the joy in knowing you,
for a moment of the touch of your hand.

Your blessings have covered me as a flood
and I drown in your mercy,
seeing my life before me
only to be told to turn my gaze towards Thee.

"All of grace" he said
and I understood,
and the first days...wonderful as they were,
are eclipsed.

You made me meek
when I desired power,
and humbled me,
wherein is Thy given strength.

Wisdom is thy breath
and fellowship thy gift,
for souls regenerated
is our meat and drink.

Those gone before,
the memory of whom I treasure,
call out to me
"press on."

Those coming alongside, youthful and budding,
are but reflections of my beginning.
Nurture them through my failings and clip the wings
that were made, not to fly, but cover their faces in your presence.

This world waits for your return,
your creatures for your rule.
Surely you look to that day also.
Come Lord Jesus!