A Strong Earthly King

        One theme that has been present from the beginning in these posts has been that there are a number of nefarious entities essentially trying to take command of this world. One of those would be the globalist agenda where the super-rich live and operate in a different dimension. They care not about ideologies as long as they have the power of the purse strings. It's not that they wish to be tyrants....rather it's that they wish to retain their great riches and become even richer...and must therefore become tyrants. The second of many groups would the communist. They knew in advance that they must be tyrants in order to succeed, in fact it is the bloodlust of the tyrant that they thrive upon and crave more of.
        These entities have dealt with many obstacles in their quest over the decades, even centuries as in the case of the super-rich, successful in just about every area of the world with the glaring exception of traditional, patriotic, God-fearing...Americans. There have been ups and downs in this battle with...us. Things went very bad for them with Ronald Reagan. The big-government evolution into a one-world government agenda was stopped in its tracks while communism was gravely wounded then falsely reported as deceased.
       A general in the globalist agenda, and Reagan's own vice-president out of necessity, replaced him in our White House. A competing globalist, Bill Clinton, defeated him before the Bush wing regained the advantage. The most recent development was yesterday's demotion of Jeb Bush, who was reluctantly replaced by the novitiate of Marco Rubio.
       As for the communists, they retreated to lick their wounds and have returned stronger than ever under the people pleasing penumbra of Marxism where totalitarianism is obscured. They have the most powerful of allies in the Roman Catholic Jesuit Pope Francis I and the Marxist...and who knows what else....Barack Hussein Obama. These two entities, the globalist and the Marxist, have united temporarily in this most recent of battles against the remnant of America's heritage.
       As I have written for much longer than these seven plus years of posts, the Jeffersonian American would never give in to tyrannies of any sort. They might bend but not break. They have been resurrected of late but the problem is that the Resurrection has not been resurrected in their minds. Rather than falling on their knees and seeking the forgiveness and mercies of God, they want only a strong earthly king.
      
       The following is my immediate response to the South Carolina primary. It has nothing to do with results... but rather the deluded dependence on those results denuded of the real strength that this republic once possessed.

America you are old and wrinkled. Your vigor is gone.
            Your bootstraps have come undone.

You need help to walk the hills to smell the hibiscus,
            but your progeny has abandoned you, forsaken their heritage,
                    and made you a laughing stock and a curse.

Your once rigorous mind reaches for memories,
            but only grabs onto a recurring nightmare...
                    of violence and blasphemy.

Your prodigious redwoods now tower over swamps of unrighteousness...
            your Grand Canyon soon to be filled with tears.

But you know nothing of these ills,
            for you live within and in front of a flat screen on your wall.

Have you not noticed the stench that covers the honeysuckle...
            and smoke that blinds you
                     to the blue mountains and white fields of wheat...
                             pleading for harvest?

Your churches sparkle like white-washed tombs,
           their outside solid as the day that the stone masons laid them,
                     but hollow as a crypt awaiting a corpse.

Your songs have no melody,          
           your poems no rhyme,
                     and your art no beauty.

Your proud caretakers have grown old...and died off,
           with no one to replace them.

Your industriousness has waned,
           your muscle withered,
                      your vision dimmed.

The light of God who formed you, the light that guided you,
            has been taken way,
                      leaving you in the darkness of your own mind.  
    
 But you know nothing of this,
            for you have the soundtrack of a movie to play,         
                       the canned laughter of a hit television show,
                                    and the cheers of filled arenas...
                                                to drown out the sirens and warnings.  

"...That Their Ridicule Be Silenced..."

        The following post is only one month old but the unravelling of America is hastening such that even these thoughts seem mild.

        When a nation such as the United States of America collapses, a once God-fearing nation that owed its very existence to the benevolence of God, the collective mind of its people not only loses all vitality but it increasingly loses the ability to function at all. We can see this in the present primary season for the election of a president. As God is my witness I have to fight back tears in seeing what is going on. The Republic is a shambles...its people unable to mentally compose itself. If there were no other threats to this nation, this campaign alone should be enough to strike fear into our hearts.
        This land of the First Amendment no longer has a news media to inform its citizens. It was once believed that at least Fox News gave a credible witness to what was going on in the world but it has collapsed also. the National Review is in chaos as any of the left-wing magazines. Radio waves are all that gives us news of the assaults upon our nation from within and without. Our youth have shown no signs whatsoever of any intellectual maturity, therefore no hope that they might buttress attempts to fortify anything of substance that remains.
        We are as a people a drunken mob willing to run a battering ram through any door that holds us back from our personal desires. We bear no resemblance to to either pilgrims or colonists, Washington or Jefferson, Lincoln or the greatest generation. We have besmirched the memory of sacrifices from every battlefield from Concord to Fallujah. Our entertainments are an orgy, our blindness the hangover and our politics the selling of aborted baby parts stemming from our wild weekends.
        May God humble us by driving the Christian ministers of this nation to their knees, so much so that they take to the pulpits pleading mercies upon a wayward people nearing self-destruction; and may He do so for His name sake alone, for His glory alone, according to His great faithfulness alone.
        May His Spirit blow away the fog that has clouded our vision and give us once again a glimpse of His glory. May we see ourselves clearly as rebellious man....fall on our faces in shame....and then be touched by His compassion to then stand again... only in His strength. Surely the world looks at us as we are and smirks at the faith in God that we once had. May God have mercy on us for this reason if no other, that their ridicule be silenced... and that they may seek mercy also.
         

I don't Think So

        You cannot become knowledgeable about something without putting in the time to study it. I know this from direct experience of well over fifty years. I've been on both the high and the low sides of this...putting the time in on very important subjects and failing to put the time in on other important subjects, but when the subject is the written Word of God there is far more than just study involved. This is why there are so many educated to the gills theologians around the world that haven't a clue as to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why a simple washerwoman may be full of the grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a minister can be devoid of it. This is why God could choose a sheepherder over a pharisee and a tinker over an Oxford Don.
          We in America have chosen to become knowledgeable in many subjects. We may call them our hobbies, we may call them passions, we may see them as security. We can become expert in investing. We might know everything that there is to know about any number of things. We have information at our fingertips where we used to have to search diligently for it, but in gathering all this knowledge and gaining all this expertise we have missed God's consistent and clear warnings to us. His judgements upon us have begun but we have not identified them as judgements.
         We have taken the lives of well over fifty million through abortion. We celebrate it! Even the supposed defenders of human life in our government do not seem to care that much about it. Apparently we believe that God will wait until one-hundred million lives are snuffed out. I don't think so.
         In only the latest assault on the family, we have sanctioned homosexuality through the legalization of same-sex marriage. Consider these few verses from the 78th chapter of the book of Psalms..."(God) established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments...." We in America, through this meteoric agenda alone, are purposely snatching that hope away from our children. We are doing the exact opposite of what was commanded! Apparently we believe that God will permit this to go on. I don't think so.
          We no longer honor the rule of law but rather survival of the fittest.  Lying is our second language. Our nation's top industry is selling idols. We call good evil and we call evil good. We defend criminals and ridicule those who are honorable. We no longer employ the common worker......we merely use them.....and even abuse them. We are an androgynous nation where the benefit of man and the glory of woman is gone. We fail to defend the innocent and the weak while we support the lazy and the usurper. We indoctrinate rather than educate and we rule rather than govern.                      

Please...please...take the time to read the entire 78th Psalm!

Risen

         The following is my impression of Risen, the Sony film (Columbia Pictures actually) released just today. I feel that the word 'impression' is more apt in this instance than 'review.' The film is unlike other Christian or Bible themed movies that I have seen over the past fifty-five or so years in that it doesn't seem to be directed at anyone in particular and yet it seems to be directed at everyone in some way. It's not an evangelistic film where it attempts to convert the unbeliever... and yet that unbeliever will go away with a very uneasy feeling. It's also not meant to strengthen the belief of the Christian a la the Charleston Heston films of old... and yet it cannot do anything but.
         If you haven't read previews of the Risen yet, it's the story of a Roman Tribune present at the Crucifixion and then charged by Pontius Pilate with the task of finding the missing body of the Nazarene Yeshua before Pilate is forced to deal with a major uprising amongst the Jews. That Tribune, played by Joseph Fiennes, is Everyman.... unbeliever and Christian alike, with thoughts deep within himself....moiling as he tries to present himself outwardly as focused and determined yet agitated by the unknown which he is unwilling to admit to.
       Does the film follow Scripture.....mostly. Does it depart from Scripture.....no....no more than the thoughts of all of us at one time or another. Did you ever just think and imagine in between the verses of the Bible...where.no one else was privy to those thoughts? That's what this film does, for it's a very personal movie. It's calming, as the script slowly meanders through a time that must have been utter chaos. I could have uttered as I sat there...."I've a feeling we're not in a movie theater anymore Toto.... for we are as if lying in the verdure of Galilee imagining what the disciples were like before endued with the power of the Holy Spirit.'
      Will Risen be acclaimed in any way by the film industry? I doubt it. Will it be nominated for any Academy Awards? Yeah...possibly Costume Design. So was it worth the effort of going to see it?  The word.....risen....strikes fear into many, for they know full well what it implies, but it comforts the Christian amidst the tumult all around us. Yes it was worth it.
       Go see it friends! Look through the eyes of that Tribune so that you might pray more rightly for your friends and family... knowing how they think. Weep along with the sobs of the Leper and recount your own cleansing. Rejoice in a risen Savior.....and then set out to walk the Judean foothills of this life, not knowing what may be ahead but trusting fully in the command to go.

What Is Our Trust Centered Upon

         The plan was to put a conservative in the White House and then add two or more originalists to the Supreme Court and take back America. It was a good plan as far as plans go. It's putting our trust in those our own plans where we depart from God's will.
         Saturday we lost one of America's greatest jurists of all time. We had plans but those plans have suddenly been abridged. We are reeling once again but nine Antonin Scalias could not pull us out of this pit if God did not will it. Should God desire to have mercy upon us for His purposes there is no force on earth that could stop those mercies from being extended, and all the power of hell could not destroy us if God does not permit it.
          Do you the reader recall the Biblical text from Exodus 17 where when Moses raised his arms with the staff that parted the sea in his hands that the Israelites prevailed on the fields of Rephidim, and when he lowered them the Amalekites prevailed in the battle? It was also at Rephidim where Moses at first feared for his life and then rebuked the Israelites for not trusting God to provide water! Surely you remember God limiting Gideon to just three hundred men to rout the Midianites. Have not these messages set in? Have we forgotten the word to Zerubbabel...."Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts."? We have departed from God with disastrous results, planned our own rescue, and then found out how brittle man's plans can be.
         The tectonics are shifting friends, the magma chamber has been breached! Trust now in God and in Him alone for as even Nahum in his taunting oracles to Nineveh wrote..."The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows them that trust in Him."       

The God Of Marxism

          The following post from September of last year is about a political ideology more than Roman Catholicism. I wrote a short novel that you can read if you like at the Isaac Crockett link to the left of this page that does contain my beliefs on the Christian Faith and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

          The Society of Jesus.....The Jesuits.....whose beginnings go back to 1535 with Inigo Lopez de Onaz y Loyola...or...Ignatius of Loyola........and who were from those beginnings sworn defenders of the Papacy.......these same Jesuits eventually became the chief opponents and antagonists of the Roman Catholic Pope. How did this happen? In the last 45 years one pope died after only a month in office, two pontiffs unsuccessfully fought the Jesuits tooth and nail and yet another traditionalist became the first pope in 500 years to resign from the office. His successor....the first Jesuit Pope!
          Malachi Martin was a Jesuit and a Vatican insider. He was an author of numerous books that I'm not going to describe here because this topic is enough for one post. These books were best sellers and can easily be ordered but the one that you might want to start with is The Jesuits, The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church. You may have to work a little to get a copy but it can be done.
         The Jesuits is not an anti-Catholic book, for this battle is within the Roman Catholic church. Traditional Roman Catholicism shares many fundamental beliefs with orthodox Protestantism, and differs on many many other doctrines essential to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Orthodox Protestantism  shares very little with the Jesuits. There may have been a commonality in the concern for the poor of this earth but the Jesuits are now more Marxist than Christian and Malachi Martin filled more than half of his book of over 500 pages giving evidence of this.
            The United States went from Ronald Reagan to the Marxist Barack Obama in 20 years! The Roman Catholic church went from the virulently anti-communist John Paul II to the Jesuit Pope Francis in 8 years! Have you not noticed the various statements that Pope Francis has made in this short two year period that seem to challenge what even the traditional Roman Catholic church has always believed and taught? I have! I was raised Roman Catholic with twelve years of Catholic education and if I were still Catholic today I would hope that I would be raising objections wherever I could.
         Martin lays out the contemporary scene for you in the first chapter titled The War. It begins with this statement..."A state of war exists between the papacy and the Religious Order of the Jesuits-the Society of Jesus, to give the Order its official name." He writes that the Jesuits are now..."enshrined in a totally new theology- the 'Theology of Liberation'..." He quotes John Paul II when upon meeting an "Indian Jesuit who, when he found was not a Marxist, exclaimed in surprise, 'So you're not all Marxists!'." Martin described the basis of this war thusly..."Marriage, homosexuality, business ethics, human liberty, piety, every sphere of human existence, were to be set adrift on the ever-changing tides of redefinition (of the Catholic Church.)"
         This book was written in 1987 during the papacy of John Paul II and before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I, was a seminary professor in Argentina at the time that Martin wrote his book. The more that he speaks out as Pope, the more questions arise as to who he is and what he believes.
         Malachi Martin writes..."Inigo founded his 'Company of Jesus' as he originally called it, for one purpose; to be defender of the Church and the papacy." This is the essence of his book, that the Jesuits have been transformed in the last 100 years from defenders of the Catholic Church and the Pope to defenders of Liberation Theology and Marxism. How similar this transformation is to Barack Obama and the United States of America and its Constitution!
         Martin gives the reader an in-depth history of the Jesuits and of their relationship with popes throughout the years. We see when and how the transformation took place with biographic descriptions of the General Secretaries of the Society. I was Roman Catholic when Pope John XXIII brought together Vatican Council II, when Pope Paul VI rather weakly took up the challenge to the Jesuit transformation, when Pope John Paul I died after only one month in the office and when the staunchly anti-communist Pope John Paul II entered the 'war.' I was oblivious to all of this.
         There will be no more books from Malachi Martin for he died from a fall down steps in his home in 1999 while in a wheel chair just after his 78 birthday He had a private audience with Pope John Paul II before his death. You can read on the Internet both a defense of and opposition to this man. One can only wonder what Malachi Martin would write today of Pope Francis I.
         Communism and Marxism are referenced on 54 pages of Malachi Martin's book. Not a week and often not a day goes by without news stories about the Chinese Communist government's intrusions into the sovereignty of their neighbors, in the lives of their people and of their military buildup, or North Korea's threats and weapons sales to America's enemies. Cuba waited us out and Vietnam's Communist leader recently visited the Oval Office. Communism is alive and Marxism is the cat's meow to many who falsely believe them to be compassionate systems.

The Coming Storm

The Coming Storm.....July, 2015       


        Their economic system was worse than terrible, although it did always fulfill its promise to bring the classes closer together, but it had to lower almost everybody to near poverty level to do so. By 'almost everybody' I mean that the tyrants and their sycophants keep their dachas and daggers but everyone else suffers. That's Communism! So anyway, they hated us because we were proof that their theories were lies and we hated them because they killed millions of people. Our university professors had a tough time figuring out who had the better argument but religion won the day for both the communists and the professors didn't want any part of it.
         So the 'war' began. Our weapons were a constitution, laws and honor, and they, well they were very inventive in devising ways to torture, murder, maim and deceive. Our strategy was to wear them down, meet them in every challenge and stay on the field longer than them. Their strategy was to establish a 'fifth column" here on our turf in every profession that had access to our minds. They went for the children, families, the entertainment industry, unions, higher education, the media and Congress. We won on just about every foreign battlefield.....wore them down.....and then they quit! We then had a big party. They changed their name and shaved the mustaches so as not to be recognized on their return. One of their own, Barack Hussein Obama, became our king...actually our president but he put a crown on anyway and began to dismantle our Constitution, weaken us internally, and tear down our defenses. A finger appeared on the wall writing Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin but we have no interest in seeing what that meant in the 5th chapter of Daniel.
         I came home this afternoon from a hard day of thinking in the car and turned on the television. PBS was broadcasting a travel documentary on Vietnam and the host almost gushed over North Vietnam's successful war for independence. That's what we have come to! Vietnam did not defeat the one who invaded them! It was Communism that invaded their society. This was not their war for independence....it was their Waterloo.....and they lost!
        Communism played on our weaknesses. If we were to lack vigilance for only a moment they would grab a foothold in our land and never give it up. We gave more than a moment. They took more than a foothold.
        The hedge around us was no longer; not the hedge of armies and missiles but of the fear of God. Our discernments had been ravaged. We could no longer live with liberty for we no longer understood it. We sought to atone for our ignorance by tearing up the evidence of that which we were ignorant of. Truth became an anathema. Jesus became an anathema......"The way, the truth, and the life" became an anathema. Here and only here is our hope, for if we return to Him, He may....He may...have mercy upon us once again, not in returning us to our exalted position but in keeping us through the coming storm.

Convergent Roads

        This post is from last month

        A man's main concerns are for his family, his employment and his health. He builds his life around his family, through the wages from his job or profession, and looks lastly at his own health. If all of these things are fine then his goals for this life are basically intact......at least for the time being.
        Now he does acknowledge that he has certain responsibilities towards his country, some of which are paying ever increasing taxes, voting, obeying the laws and if necessary submitting to various standards, regulations and civic duties, but these two things, the country and the individual, are seen by him as two parallel roads that never meet. Yes, his taxes may skyrocket, he may lose his job in a recession and may have to move to another city, he may have to change doctors and of course the whole economy may tank taking most of his savings but bad as that is it's the absolute worst that can happen. There are wars....young people are drafted..... and people die, but these wars are relatively minor in this sophisticated and modern world. His main focus remains keeping his own personal goals intact.
        Here is where the problem begins. Here is where the 'best-laid plans of mice and men go awry.' This nation of ours did not just evolve. Great sacrifices were were made over hundreds of years. Great genius was at work. Left to ourselves we would have folded like a card table long ago. In our own power we would today be just one of hundreds of nations if we existed at all as the United States of America. These two roads, a nation and its individuals, are convergent. When there is peace and prosperity they may not meet but when disaster strikes a nation...the individual is square on that axis.
        This is what man has missed. The welfare of his family depends on more than his studious attention to his overall plans, it depends also on the health of the country that is his. In our case vigilance was always necessary to prevent tyranny. We gave up on vigilance decades ago!  We have a communist as our president, with Samantha Power, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Valerie Jarrett and who knows who else as his....advisers, and if that doesn't scare you....nothing will. And who is defending us from this man.....Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan (John Boehner's younger brother), John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Karl Rove! This is the lotto from hell with 1 chance in 297,000,000 of surviving.
        Some have closed their ears already and quit on this post by now.... 'no...these problems are manageable' they say to themselves, but they are not manageable! They were indeed manageable at one time but the only One who could do so has taken His wisdom, His guidance and His protective hand away! We are on our own!!! Do you understand the enormity of out national debt? I have to ask this again...do you understand the enormity of our national debt and see the vast and varied implications of it? Have you ever read anything on the plans of Islamic terrorism and its foothold here in America other than what the mainstream media has let you read? Could you write one single paragraph on what Communism is? Let me change gears....can you not see that our society has completely collapsed (past tense)....that there is not an area that is not in utter chaos? I advise you to quit simply smirking at the lurid news stories, or just shaking your head at the violence, or thinking that you are somehow immune from the toxicity that we breath in every day in our entertainments
         Friends....examine your priorities....expand your reading....seek other sources of information while there is time to prepare...not change things....but prepare. They're not hard to find. Try Drudge or Breitbart.....listen to Mark Levin or Limbaugh, but more importantly than anything... read the Old Testament prophets and anything in the New Testament that addresses the last days. You don't need multiple books to guide you in this.....just the breath of the author of one book!    
         

Wrestling With Politicians

          Iran's nuclear program is hardly mentioned, Saudi Arabia's internal problems are but fodder for page five, Planned Parenthood....now what was that issue again..., China's economy couldn't be understood even if it was talked about, the collapse of Europe has been pushed to the back burner,  children are burned up by the hundreds in Africa -violence is tearing apart America's metropolitan areas- there are more bubbles in our economy than on the Lawrence Welk show, nuclear war is shifting from a possibility to a probability, all these and many more infected boils go almost unnoticed and ignored while most of our attention is on that quadrennial road show of electing an American president.
          Friends, there is no salvaging this republic. It has served God's purposes for over two centuries, its mostly honorable heritage a testimony to God's mercies and power, but it has predictably fallen from within, it's people but sad ghostly figures in the faint haze of what was once liberty, freedom, rigorous intellects and godly circumspection.....a holy caution against thinking ourselves more than we are.
           What a reformation and general awakening would do is humble us to the extent that we can accept our chastisement, dispose of our idols, and build, for whatever time remains and for whatever purpose that God would have, on the rock that is Jesus Christ. Our society and culture would of necessity have been so changed that our merchants would no longer profit from our trivial pursuits that will have withered away.
           So it is indeed important to look for men and women who want to serve God above anything else but as you do so keep in mind that these political campaigns also serve to distract, give false hopes, and even corrupt. They distract in that we wind up listening to Rush Limbaugh more than seeking God's Holy Spirit. They give false hopes in that we are looking for leaders to rescue us, 'princes' as the Bible calls them, rather than trusting and obeying God's Word. They corrupt in that, as has been said...."Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."
         Yes, do your duty and participate...and to do so with great vigor and determination...and all to the glory of God...but as a Christian who knows fully well that God Himself will in due time deal with these politicians who give Him lip service but have no intention of following through with their promises... as He will deal with ministers who through their own vanities have flattered rather than warned and exposed rather than protected the members of their sheepfold.
      

The Cauldron Awaiting Us

         The political upheaval today is similar in principle to what happened in the American colonies in the first half of the eighteenth century during the Great Awakening. There was the ruling class of sorts, those who held all the power.....the establishment if you will....some in the church and the rest in the government, who thought that they knew everything that there was to know. They would therefore quite naturally lead, and everyone would quite naturally follow, for they had been ordained as God's ministers....fair and square....and would in no way relinquish that power over the souls of men; as for the people, well their job was simply to listen and obey.
          As always happens, and always will until Jesus Christ returns, the people had once again failed to remain vigilant in their faith and colonial America's light had dimmed, but once again God had mercy on a wayward people as He raised up men like Jonathon Edwards, George Whitefield and Samuel Davies who would, through much opposition, proclaim the glories of the gospel of Jesus Christ to a fallen world. The religious tyranny would end as would decades later the tyranny of the king.
         That colonial American had a pedigree, forged in the cauldron of persecution of the religious tyranny of 17th century England, for Puritans and Dissenters who had known their God did not recognize the voice then emanating from the pulpits. These people who were well versed in the scriptures that God had given them thus recognized wolves in bishop's clothing. They rebelled against the religious darkness of the pulpit elites but were legislated against with their light then being confined to meeting in the meadows and forests. Ultimately many came to America where they would build a city set on a hill whose light could not be hidden.      
         That city is today but an archaeological ruin or at best a homestead to be visited occasionally as is Mount Vernon or Monticello.  The hubbub in Iowa and New Hampshire which is only the beginnings of a spring and summer of political frenzy exhibit the pedigree of 1776 but the results of this election cycle, necessary as it may be, will be inconsequential as to the immediate future of America, for there is yet another cauldron awaiting us which will either prove to be a witch's brew or a purification process where we will be refined as a people who once again call out to their God. The candidates elected, should God give us time to do so, will be but some of the ingredients in this cauldron. Therefore, and for this reason alone, we must choose wisely.

Bumpkins...Low-Information Voters...Racists And Homophobes

        The following two depictions are very typical of conservative Christian voters....as I know them anyway. I'll call them Mary and John:

         Mary works full time. Her children are grown and no longer live at home. She is a reader, mostly non-fiction but with occasional novels of a romance or detective nature. She is always busy with either cleaning house or working in the garden or exercising...often trying to lose a little weight. She and her husband spend Fridays and Saturdays with close friends, usually playing cards, and often trying to help new friends fit in who have recently started attending their church. It's a big community church with laughter always ringing through the halls from the children's areas on the lower level to the upper level classrooms.
         Probably half of the books that she reads are from Christian book publishers and her major passion is conservative talk radio. She hardly ever watches the evening news other than that of the local station and she wouldn't know Chris Mathews from Chris Rock...matter of fact neither do I!
         Mary and her husband are good stewards of their money. He makes about $70,000 and she supplies an additional $45,000 or so. Their major expenses are vacations, improving the house and always having a new, safe and reliable automobile. They write a check for the church every Sunday and regularly support no fewer than a half a dozen ministries, most Christian but others such as the Wounded Warrior Project and even the Humane Society. She will write a check at the drop of a hat if someone is in need and has done so dozens of times, never expecting repayment. She supports political candidates and causes.
         Mary has a bachelor degree in Psychology, earned about thirty years previous and a masters in teaching which she uses in her profession as a second grade teacher in their church sponsored elementary school. She can quote Alexis de Tocqueville and Charles de Montesquieu and knows a lot more about our Constitution then her brother who teaches political science in college.

         Mary is a bumpkin.....easily led astray by shysters....unable to think for herself and....well....just generally a low-information voter...... according to those who don't know her anyway, or only that her first choice for president is Senator Ted Cruz. That's all they really need to know.

         John is big into sports. Softball takes up most of his free time....in the spring-summer and fall anyway. He's a reader also...just about all non-fiction. He has a sharp mind and the facts remain with him long after reading a book. He builds homes for a living and volunteers for Habitat For Humanity. He tends to specialize in a few areas of study. He is very knowledgeable in American history but economics is his biggest strength. He understands fiscal issues and monetary theory. He was...Tea Party...long before there even was a Tea Party.
         John is color blind. His best friend is black. His favorite economist is Thomas Sowell.  He and his wife have adopted two sons....one Black and one Asian. John has seen a lot of the world as twenty years of his life were spent in the military. He and Debbie, his wife, travel often. They love Asia, they return again and again to Europe, they do short term ministry in Africa every year. John's brother is a homosexual who John sees every week, and John prays for him every day of his life.

         John is a racist, a homophobe and a callous xenophobe with no compassion........according to liberals anyway.......for John supports Donald Trump for president. John's knowledge of economics has led him to see that our nation has very little time left before a dictatorship picks up the pieces amidst the anarchy brought on by a bankrupt government. He's not sure that Trump can do anything but at least Trump knows business. If Trump can't make it, Ben Carson is John's, the racist, second choice for president.

The Tempter's Sieve

         Read here words of exclamation from the Lord, Israel's Messiah, that the writer of the book of Isaiah penned in his 51st and 52nd chapters....."Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness.......Give attention to me, my people......Listen to Me you who know righteousness......Awake, awake, put on strength.......awake as in the days of old......Wake yourself, wake yourself......Awake, awake! Put on your strength......" and "Depart! Depart, go out from there; touch no unclean thing..."
         Jesus Christ is telling His church today, with great emphasis and through many voices, to awaken! If you open your ears you can hear it. The following are only a few paragraphs that I chose from a larger post from January of 2012. Please consider the warnings from just of those voices:

 Those Who Ignore History

         Erwin W. Lutzer is the long-time pastor of Moody Church in Chicago. He's the author of Hitler's Cross and among other writings is known for his studies into Hitler's Germany, its relation to the German Christian church and for warnings to America of a mass movement such as Nazism happening here. He followed up his award winning book with When A Nation Forgets God where he focuses on the weakness of the human mind when in the hands of master villains.
         Hitler  used his power to "obliterate" the church... "transforming (it) so thoroughly that every vestige of Christianity would be smashed." The "Confessing Church" of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller that challenged Hitler was dealt with harshly. The state would take over from the church on all issues such as dedicating infants, marriage and holidays which would become paganized. Lutzer gives us this warning from a sermon by German theologian Niemoller, "We have all of us-the whole church and the whole community-we've been thrown into the Tempter's sieve, and he is shaking and the wind is blowing, and it must now become manifest whether we are wheat or chaff. Verily, a time of sifting has come upon us, and even the most indolent and peaceful person among us must see that the calm of meditative Christianity is at an end."

          The author writes "Of course as any skilled propagandist knows the masses should never be told the 'end-game,' that is, where the leader actually intends to take the people" and quotes Hitler often from Mein Kampf; here are but two of those quotes..."The magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to the big lie than to the little one, since they themselves lie in little things but would be ashamed of lies that are too big" and yet again "By clever and persevering use of propaganda even heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and consequently the most wretched life as paradise."
         

The Tracks Of My Tears

The following post is from early in 2015:

         Smokey Robinson was one of the writers and it was originally recorded by The Miracles on a Motown label. If you are a Linda Ronstadt fan you're certainly familiar with it but most likely you remember the Johnny Rivers version that went to #10 in 1967. It was The Tracks Of My Tears. Some of the lyrics are these:

People say I'm the life of the party
Because I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I'm blue
So take a good look at my face
You'll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears.

        I have a page link to the left of what you are reading that is just about all humor. Not a day goes by without some laughter. There were a lot smiles today as my wife and I went to Living Treasures which is a popular...and wonderful...animal park here in the Pittsburgh area. Both of us just watched  in amazement the wonders of God's beautiful creation. I marvelled at small monkeys, two of whom were only a couple of weeks old, who cared for each other so tenderly. One baby was on its mother's back while the father seemed to be picking small insects off of it.
       Right now I'm typing and then looking up to a movie on television and then typing and then watching the film again. I've mentioned the Christmas Day 2004 Tsunami a number of times in these posts and I've watched videos of that disaster. The surf had receded and people walked in the wet sand picking up shells oblivious of what was bearing down upon them. This is America today!
       Impossible, with actors Naomi Watts, Ewen McGregor and Tom Holland, is a depiction of that terrible day and it's based on a true story,  I believe that there's a 'tsunami' coming to America. God doesn't use that word but the essence is the same and we are picking up sea shells unaware of the roar all about us. The news is only somewhat bothersome and we will cover our ears should a rotating siren happen to point our way, but it surely is only a test, then we can be at ease again.
        Soon, Pastors all over America will be once again in their pulpits, but they will ignore the button for the siren. In fact they probably do not even know where it is, for it has been replaced in importance by state-of-the-art speaker systems with the sweetest resonance to carry their voices with words of comfort and encouragement.
        Life goes on, there's work to do, and I personally continue with the balancing act...glorying in God's handiwork, accepting His blessings though I don't deserve them, smiling often, but..... if you look closer....it's easy to trace.....the tracks of my tears....over what America has become.