New Years Eve Comet

         If New Years Eve revelers look up to the western sky just left of the crescent moon after sunset they may be able to see what has been named Comet 45P. Now those revelers may have to be ringing in the new year at someone's hunting cabin up in the mountains and away from the lights but the comet will be up there and New Years Eve may be the most visible evening. In fact it's up there right now but its hard for even astronomers to take a picture of. You might want to have a good pair of binoculars nearby. The following post is from one year ago today:

Nebulous to Some.....Perspicuous To Others

         Astronomers once called everything outside of our own galaxy...nebula... or nebulae in the plural tense. Today the word is properly confined only to interstellar dust and gas clouds. If a concept is cloudy and hard to decipher we might describe it as nebulous.  When Jesus Christ returns to earth with His mighty angels, I presume that the very first sightings of His army will be classified as some sort of nebulae. As He comes closer and a form of sorts begins to take shape, the classification may change to UFO. At the point when men finally recognize that it is the God King of the Christians and the Messiah of the Jews, this from what the world's greatest selling book has always proclaimed, and as every conceivable means of what would then be clearly seen as punishment wreaks havoc upon the earth, men will call on the rocks to fall on them and end their misery.
           Today it is the concept God Himself that is nebulous, even to most of Christendom, and unfortunately to much of Christianity. Although this is certainly true of God in His infinities, it is much the opposite as it relates to God's very existence and also to what should be our self-awareness as His creation, but only the Christian can see this. God created the physics that we try to disprove Him with and the logarithms that we try to replace Him with. He created the measure that we use in an attempt to prove our own autonomy. He created the mind that we refuse to think with, the sight that we refuse to see with and the hearing that we refuse to hear with.
         God is not nebulous in His holiness or His power or His glory or His majesty or His might. His warnings, His righteous judgements, His love and His mercies are not concealed. We are groping around only because we have run from the light

Your Mission.....Should You Accept It

         Donald Trump as Time Magazine's pick for Person of the Year was expected and President-elect Trump was a very logical pick. Obviously it would have been Hillary had she been awarded the election. Time Magazine likes to throw a curve ball every once in a while and give the award to a group of people or an idea or even an inanimate object. I'll hear the news on who they picked each year but have never actually read the accompanying article for Person of the Year. Well I shouldn't say 'never have read' for back when there was a legitimate journalistic media in America I did read Time. In fact one of the fondest memories of my high school academics was that we had to read one of the opinion articles from U. S. News & World Report every week and give a report on it.
         Anyway, had not Donald Trump been so obvious a pick then I think that conservative talk radio would have been the ticket and here is why. This mass of kinetic energy that covered the landscape with Trump signs from Easton to Boise (east of Easton and west of Boise...eh...not so kinetic), this army of Minutemen, this patriotic, educated and intellectually armed throwback to Valley Forge would not have survived the winters of our discontents had not conservative talk radio been leading the way.
         This was our Publius, our Thomas Paine, our Benjamin Franklin and our John Locke transmogrified into waves of electromagnetic radiation travelling at the speed of light into every kitchen and workroom and automobile in America. The mainstream media, our betters as they perceive themselves to be, tried to keep the truth from us but utterly failed. We went through basic training all the way up to OCS at the instruction of radio and books and our own Constitution...all synchronized by common sense and reason....rare in the cities but abundant outside of them. The only thing that we needed was a George Washington to lead us. Well...we didn't get him.....but we did get Donald Trump. Considering that you could probably count the George Washingtons that America has had on the fingers of one hand...I guess we could have done a whole lot worse.
         These stellar stars that we navigated by through a perfect storm wrapped in a cosmic disturbance that threatened every foundation laid in the latter half of the eighteenth century....these men and women kept the heat on and the powder dry. Their mission now.....a much more difficult mission this time.....should they accept it....is to bring God into the equation...but first they themselves have to realize that God alone rules in the affairs of men....and that is where our pulpits come in. Please pray for the men in them.

Note to those outside of the United States: This is essentially what happened in our recent election. Donald Trump won 83 to 85% of the counties in America and this in spite of a grotesquely biased news media and a couple million votes from people who were not even eligible to vote. This also is why we have an Electoral College system!

Abraham Lincoln's Last Words

         George Washington.....Thomas Jefferson.....Abraham Lincoln. Admittedly when I was in grade school these men were presented in such a way that an adult might brush it off as building up heroes for kids, but we citizens of the United States are the lesser for it if we do not explore these lives ourselves. The fact of the matter is that these men were more than extraordinary and that the word heroes does not do them justice.         
          Is there a man in American public life today with the analytical acumen of Abraham Lincoln? Well you would have to know something about Lincoln in order to understand not only his greatness but his genuine wisdom, and there are plenty of books out there that make these facts very clear. I want to recommened to just one....a 2014 publication titled Lincoln's Battle with God, A President's Struggle With Faith And What It Meant For America. (Thomas Nelson publisher) The author is Stephen Mansfield who has written a number of books and handled many and various topics of faith and America.
         Let me start with this startling anecdote because the author started his book with it. It needs an explanation first because the words are so significant that objections will be made. This testimony came from a pastor in Springfield, Illinois who was informed directly by Mary Todd Lincoln. These would have been Abraham Lincoln's last words. The couple had taken a carriage ride that afternoon and while in the president's box at Ford's Theater, Mr. Lincoln continued the conversation they were having earlier in the day. After the war they would take a rest but not by going back to Springfield. President Lincoln spoke these last words to his wife....and then repeated them..."We will visit the Holy Land......We will visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior."
            There is no doubt that a young and even a middle-aged Lincoln was more than a skeptic...he was an antagonist to the Christian religion and labelled an infidel by many Christians. This was his life and it is documented ad nauseam. How...surely many have wondered.....how could this infidel have made these statements?
        The Christian knows, or should know, that the struggle in coming to believe in God and faith in Jesus Christ can be a long and arduous journey. We might know it from our own life and we therefore can extend great patience to others who appear to be losing in this their journey. The bold and brash statements against Christian churches by Abraham Lincoln in general can be acknowledged by the Christian today but not so easily etched into President Lincoln's tombstone, for the Christian who lives in his or her Bible and prays constantly day and night also understands first-hand what the grace of God can do in the heart of man. Others would indeed have more difficulty in bringing harmony between a young lawyer Lincoln and the 56 year old President.
         So what happened to Abraham Lincoln in the last decade of his life? For the eight years of these posts I have tended to not give normal book reviews. I want the reader to actually read the book. If this one anecdote that I mentioned doesn't pique your interest in this matter then nothing will, but I will add that White House séances are also explored in-depth in the book. Abraham Lincoln's words and thoughts were cherished and preserved after his death so there is evidence upon evidence in this matter of his religious belief....and some of it supports a continued aversion to Christianity while some of it supports a quiet man whose serious reflections on life in general extended to his struggles with faith giving evidence that a great change had indeed taken place.
         Now, There is more to being a Christian than promising words, we know that very well, but we can also see our own weaknesses and can at times at least give the benefit of the doubt to others also caught up in their own weaknesses. I cannot say with any kind of certainty that Abraham Lincoln ever made a profession of faith. I can say that I recognize very well the path that he was on and where that path usually leads.
        You won't be disappointed in this book, and if you are a Civil War buff you won't be disappointed in it either. Stephen Mansfield writes very succinctly leaving the reader plenty of opportunity to meditate on what they are reading to make up their own mind.

"Tall Hats And Gold Watch Fobs"

          Pat Buchanan's latest syndicated article takes on John McCain and Lindsey Graham, leaders of what once, as Buchanan terms..."The War Party." The essence of the article is that these Republican senators want to put 'crippling sanctions' on Russia before Donald Trump has a chance to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. John McCain and the rest of the Republican establishment elites who had been thoroughly humiliated and summarily disposed of during the primary campaign, are fighting for the current 'world order' to continue, a 'world order' that is discussed in detail in recent posts. All other schemes having failed these establishment elites are now using the supposed Russian connection in the November 8th election. Lindsey Graham is quoted  as Tweeting ..."They (Russia) need to pay a price."
          The following was posted before the 2012 elections. Donald Trump does not represent the 'high ground' of humbling ourselves before our Creator but he also doesn't actively or purposely work against the benefactor of all our blessings.

Tall Hats And Gold Watch Fobs

          There's a scene from Ted Turner's Gettysburg where Brigadier General John Buford, played by Sam Elliot, scans rocky heights and farm land that would in one day become a battlefield and he literally spews out these words as he foresees carnage in the Union army if the politicians and generals play their war games as usual, "afterwards men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chests and say 'what a brave charge it was'..... I've never seen anything as brutally clear as this.... It's as if I can actually see the blue troops in one long bloody moment....as if it were already done....as if tomorrow already happened and there ain't nothin you can do about it..." He went on to lay a plan to change that, "We can block that road till the main body gets here, and deprive the enemy of the high ground!"
          There are a significant number of Americans who feel the same way about our nation today. The Republican elite, or Republican Establishment are the "men with tall hats and gold watch fobs" who are playing their political games while bursting forth all around us have been venomous attacks on our Constitution, our national defense, our financial stability, the American Creed and the very essence of our being, that being a nation blessed by God. Packs of wolves split us and devour those that did not have the foresight to prepare themselves for such an onslaught. The high ground in this coming election, should the Lord even permit us to get there, is at the feet of Jesus Christ, humbly prostrating ourselves for thinking we could do anything at all, let alone succeed and flourish as we had in the past, without reverence to and dependence upon Him.
           The GOP elite seek just the opposite! They avoid the One who guided those ships to these shores so many years ago, who gave us the perseverance to blaze out upon the frontier, who gave wisdom to men in founding a nation, who in spite of our waywardness kept us together and strengthened us as Nazism, Fascism, Communism and all sorts of totalitarianism swept this beautiful ball hanging in the expanse of His universe. This is the answer they give...shun Him, and those who trust Him, and let us make our own paths!
          I turn often to those scripted words given to General Buford, for political pragmatism seeks that ridge and unless we block that road we will lose the high ground of our calling and America will no longer exist in its present form. We will have let down our God, our country and our children. The ballot box without our mind stayed on Jesus Christ is worthless and it would do us well to remember David's words in Psalm 18:1-3:

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

     

Too Many Choices

         It sounds naive to you I'm sure but I look at it as a wonder first noticed many years ago that just continues to amaze. Do you need some hazelnut oil? How about three-quarters of a pound of pastrami brisket...shaved, or maybe you are in the mood for some wild caught squid or Prince Edward Island mussels? Whatever you want it is at your fingertips at your local supermarket here in the United States! If there is something else that you want, clothes or accessories, and our local retailer doesn't have it, all one has to do is spend fifteen minutes on Amazon and it will probably be delivered the next day. Is it naive to still feel the wonder of this phenomenon decades after it came to be? Maybe it is but if one does not at least acknowledge the overwhelming abundance and varieties available to us then there is something else in the equation....extreme presumption!
         It's possible I guess that my upbringing has something to do with my feelings. In my youth the supermarkets had....pork & beans, potatoes, bread, eggs, milk, laundry detergent and cookies....and about a thousand other things but they were all basically staples..... and we were thankful for that. We were never in want for a string of hot dogs or a quarter pound stick of butter.
         Our weekly grocery shopping would probably not affect me so much if I didn't believe that this smorgasbord of delights was about to come to a grinding halt, for we soon may be thankful once again for a can of pork & beans and a loaf of bread. We've presumed upon our freedoms and more importantly we've presumed upon God. We saw everything that was available to us and thought of them as rights instead of blessings to be sorted through and pruned if necessary.
        To use an old phrase that would be considered ludicrous today....there is the devil to pay... for our failures down the line and from top to bottom, and there are not that many who have not contributed  in some way to the trouble that we are in, and I certainly am not one of them.
         How did we come to fashion a society where half of its people build up their 401s for security while the other half will depend on a social security check and a few bucks in the bank? This is not a 'top one-percenter issue'....it's a 'half will have enough money and have will not' issue. As a nation, how did we let many of our important industries close up and give this valuable business and needed infrastructure to foreign nations....who hate us?  How and why were we taken in so easily by power brokers of special interests who gorge themselves on our dues and the perks from our votes while the rest of the country went to Hades? There are answers to all of these but what is needed more at this time is sober preparation.
         We are now nearing if not in the endgame of this current world order. .... and the moves may be quick and surprising.
      

My Bermuda Cruise....And Dumpster Diving

          I want to ask a favor of the reader. Because of the embarrassing nature of the addendum added to the end, please do not pass this post on to friends or relatives, or promote it in any way, and please do not print it and hang it up at work or any such thing! Better yet...don't tell anyone about this website!


Bermuda......On The Periphery......May, 2014

          I'm writing this from the promenade deck of Royal Caribbean's Grandeur Of The Seas cruise ship. We are a couple hundred miles off of the Virginia coast on our return from the beautiful and almost idyllic country of Bermuda. This is my favorite deck, the starboard and port sides of which hang the lifeboats, but it's not my favorite for that reason, rather it's the starboard side, stern to bow, where I can light up my pipe and look out upon this great expanse of water.
          I can picture a young John Kennedy impressing the ladies with his charm and good looks as he heads to England with his family on one of the great ocean liners of his day. I can imagine Winston Churchill sitting on a wooden deck very much like this one, peering through the same iron rails off onto the salty brine that was home to his Royal Navy. Surely it must have been the same view...the same feeling of floating on top of what may be the most powerful force on earth. I try to put myself back to the days prior to World War II but I can't see their world without also knowing what was ahead of them, but then again, I can have a similar experience as Winston Churchill's in concerns about perilous times and dangers ahead, actually even much more than he himself could imagine.
          Bermuda itself has an aesthetically pleasing culture and all of the many Bermudians we met were so very friendly, even going above and beyond. As my wife and I were trekking under the hot sun along the road to a beach an elderly couple stopped their automobile and insisted that we hop in and let them take us the rest of the way.
          This relatively flat island nation of only 64,000 people on 20 square miles must import 98% of everything that they need. There is no natural water source and the white roofs over the beautiful pastel colored homes directs the rainfall for collection and use. They have one diesel fueled power plant to supply all of their electricity, and if you plan on moving to Bermuda to work you might want to think again for Bermudians are almost wholly favored for employment.
          Against the advice of almost everyone that we talked to we rented a Moped. I had only been on one once, thirty years ago, on a similar cruise to Jamaica. When we pulled out of the rental station I felt like Gregory Peck with Audrey Hepburn on the back in Roman Holiday but once we were out on the narrow winding, often wall enclosed roads with Bermudians in cars and buses going about their daily duties with familiarity I felt more like Steve McQueen trying to stay ahead of the fast approaching German prison guards in The Great Escape. I prayed most of the ride, constantly going over in my mind on which brake the instructor taught me, in the thirty second training course, to use... and which one he instructed me not to use under any circumstances, and all of this while driving on the wrong side of the road! My wife literally screamed twice. As for me it was a great acting job to calm her down, similar to George Clooney calming Sandra Bullock down in Gravity when George knew that he was in deep trouble too.
          We met so many people and the conversations were very enjoyable. I had great difficulty getting into serious discussions about the world that we live in but I did have one lead-in for a serious talk. I would give my observations and then listen to their hopefully profound responses. Here is how it played out....after returning from an excursion I sat on the bed in our stateroom and turned on the television. That classic 1953 film Titanic had just started and I planned on watching it. Early on, in the middle of a serious scene where Barbara Stanwyck's character was in tears discussing with Clifton Webb's character their soon to be divorce, the screen went blank for a few moments and a Bob Hope comedy started in its place! I couldn't help but wonder if a member of the crew spotted the cable channel's offering about the sinking of the Titanic and hurriedly somehow switched the programming.
         I brought this up at the dinner table as all eyes were upon me and focused on the story of the Titanic. Those people were sitting around dinner tables just like we were, I said, being waited on hand and foot by a very professional staff of shipboard waiters, talking about the same incidentals of life that we were talking about. Life was exciting to them on their transatlantic voyage as it was to us on our luxurious cruise to Bermuda.....until the Titanic brushed the ragged subsurface of the iceberg, then life changed for everyone.
         I followed this concept up with the great film Mrs. Miniver where Greer Garson's character lived a privileged life in a beautiful English cottage on the Thames River outside of London. She was preoccupied with the purchase of a Sunday hat that she desperately wanted. Walter Pidgeon's character of her husband was equally preoccupied with the purchase of a new sporty automobile. Their children had wonderful prospects for the future....but once again... only until England was forced to enter the war. I then mentioned two very different church services from the film, one in the beginning where the family was thinking about anything but God... and the other at the end where, under the blue sky visible through the bombed out roof of the church, everyone gave rapt attention to their Creator. I concluded with....they now knew that the God who could sustain them as a nation could also lift His protective hand from them. After a short pause....the conversation immediately returned to the cruise. Oh well.
          At breakfast and lunch you are seated with someone new every meal and on our last day we met a conservative Presbyterian couple just like us and two very nice ladies from London. We talked about everything from films, to conservative and liberal politics, to health care, to religion. There was a lot of laughter and I think that we four Americans and two British ladies learned a lot about each other's countries.
          While in Bermuda we took an excursion on a small ferry. A young man, a Bermudian of course, gave us an excellent tour through the passageway from where our ship was docked to their largest city of Hamilton. He was very personable and we had an opportunity to talk. I wanted him to walk away from our conversation knowing that we in America are two very distinct peoples, hardly related to one another any more, for our bonding together as Americans is gone, as one side has a very reductionist and revisionist view of American history and almost total ignorance of our Constitution and the importance of it. I wanted this young man to know this as he watched the news or read the newspapers for he will get little if any insight into the American people from the international media. If our republic falls, which it is in the process of doing, because of the greed of numerous special interest groups to secure benefits, handouts and entitlements in exchange for their political support and oblivious to others using them as dupes, and because we have forgotten God, then every honest individual loses and every country eventually falls to totalitarianism. Well.... he had met one of those 'red state' Americans anyway!
          We also met an artist, very accomplished and internationally respected in her work, and we spent over an hour looking at her paintings eventually purchasing a beautiful giclee print of a typical Bermudian city dwelling with an old man and two children in it. This young female artist described her work to the people stopping by and did so always as it related to the majesty of the God who designed and created everything. Our very small collection of paintings in our dining room are all by artists that we have personally met and it is a special joy to look at a one of these paintings in our home and think about the artist who created it, my own mother being one of them.
          So I did have some conversations that included God but for me it was peripheral. I was edified by this young lady but I myself edified no one. It was no surprise that I had difficulty praying on the cruise with all the sights and wonders and activities. Without the Internet, newspapers or radio there was no war, no crises, almost no reality and if one is not careful....no God. So in one way I was greatly weakened by the pleasure trip but through it I did receive a stark reminder, a blessing in disguise, of my own past, of what it was like being only on the periphery of God. Here I was with the wonders of God's creation all around me but my thoughts rarely went to Him. I admired the beauty of creation without considering the majesty of the Creator! It's different here at home, without the distractions, where I can see a marvelously green lawn and thank God for giving beautiful colors to His world and I can smell the freshly cut grass and let my thoughts offer up praises to Him.
          I need reminded often, even daily, of where I once was.... lost....oblivious to God....looking to the baubles of this world as if they were of priceless value....and all the while as I was perishing. I need it for myself and also to help me keep in perspective where others are who do not know Christ. It's not an easy choice for them for they are as tropical fish swimming in the murky water of an ignored aquarium, unable to see outside the glass or even what is in front of them. Only the Holy Spirit can give life to the sea of peoples with no vision and no concerns other than that of a secular life and beautiful world that merely evolved.
          I was where they are and would be there today, if I had even survived, had not God intervened. I know I will think often of Bermuda and pray, for that young man who gave us a guided tour and heard an odd testimony of America, for the friendly people, for the fellow passengers and crew who we came to know and like, and I'll pray at that time for the mercies granted to one such as I to be granted to many of them. I'll think of that young Christian artist as I admire her work and thank God for way-tokens and encouragements and lessons like this, and for weaknesses that can be prisms for His light, and for His strength to press on....and to press on...and to press on.

addendum:
          I took a lot of digital pictures while on the cruise... of the many decks that you could stroll upon, and the pools, our stateroom and a lot of the wonderful entertainment. On shore I took pictures of the beautiful pastel colored homes dotting the landscape and also now had evidence to show of the bluest waters that I had ever seen. There were also photographs of the friends we made including the waiters who were with us all week. In short, it would have been a visual reminder of a luxurious cruise to Bermuda.
          I write 'would have been' for a funny thing happened on my way to the Grove City Outlets which is about an hour drive from our home. I stopped at a rest area on Rt. 79 about two miles before the exit to the outlets. There was an empty bag and wrappings from a couple of hot dogs on the seat of the car, along with some incidentals I had brought along. Among the 'incidentals' was the memory card of my camera for I had every intention of stopping to get the pictures developed. Well, it appears that as I gathered up the papers to throw away I also picked up the Ziploc bag that had the memory card in it.
          I didn't discover that it was missing until this morning. After church I drove all the way back up Rt. 79 to the rest area. The garbage container that I threw everything away in was empty so I talked to the attendant and he kindly led me to a dumpster. Just then a downpour began. I started to pull out the clear garbage bags to see if I could spot the white paper bag inside.....no luck....so I climbed into the dumpster, with my church clothes on, and literally waded knee deep in the bags and bottles and cans and watermelon rinds...and probably a hypodermic needle or two...and well everything else. I did not find the bag I threw away the day before or my camera's memory card.
          I was concerned most for my wife who would be very disappointed but a thought then came to me. We'll always have memories but what is left that is tangible are the necklace and the bracelet of sea glass that I bought for my wife, for her birthday was in the middle of the cruise, and the stunningly vibrant painting we purchased from the artist who, as I wrote above, described the subjects of her work to everyone who stopped "as (they) related to the majesty of God who designed and created everything."
          That which is lasting remains and only that which was fleeting is gone.

The Second Of Four Possibilities

     
          In the following post from three weeks before the election I listed four possibilities for America and the second of the four possibilities is where we seem to be headed. America is indeed already under judgement but most have lost all the skills of discernment to recognize this. I'm reminded for only a moment of Auntie Em.... from the 1939 film The Wizard Of Oz....smiling and knitting in her rocking chair high up in the middle of the tornado. We ourselves are in the eye of a hurricane so to speak...and it is not going to dissipate....and it would benefit every Christian to know this.


The Four Possibilities In This Coming Election

        There are four possible results in the coming election and they are as follows: The American public remains as it is right now and Clinton is awarded the election. That's one. The American public remains as it is and Trump wins the election. That's two. America humbles itself before God but God has Clinton awarded the election anyway. That's three...and America humbles itself before God who permits Trump to win the election. That's four possible results....there are no others.... and that is assuming that God even permits us to reach November 8th or to hold an election.
           Let me expand upon these four results. In the first one America continues to do what it is doing right now, that being that on the one side it wants its corrupt and manifestly incompetent candidate to move into the Oval Office and continue to discard what is left of our American heritage, while the other side continues to put its trust in its own power, and refuses to solely rely on God's power. The result is that Clinton is awarded the election...the judgements upon America continue....and there is no mercy extended.
           In the second possibility....in spite of all the avenues of election fraud being perpetrated upon the American public...Donald Trump still wins. The winners had relied upon their own perceived power up to the election and consequently think that they were proven right....the result is that judgements upon America continue....and mercy is not extended because the people relied upon their own perceived powers.
          The third possibility is that America, under whatever circumstances, and there are many possibilities, repents...humbles itself....sees our failure to trust in God and falls before Him seeking mercy. Hillary Clinton is awarded the election because of collusion of the power-brokers.....judgements upon America continue but God responds to our humility and has mercy upon us in the coming difficult days.
          The fourth possibility is similar....the American public, once again under whatever circumstances, discards its trust in man and trusts only in God.....Donald Trump wins the election.....judgements continue upon America and the world....but God is with us through them.
         

Enrolled, Cajoled, And Controlled

This post is from November 22nd:       

          OK, let's explore how this whole thing happened. We'll start with John Dewey. No, he's not part of Duck Dynasty's legal team...Huey, Dewey and Louie, he was a bunch of things back in the early 1900s but most disastrously....an educational reformer and was sometimes called the Father of Modern Education. He helped reform education into a politicized reeducation camp for anyone who may have been initially instructed by God-fearing parents. At Fox News as I write is an article titled "President of university founded by Jefferson asked to not quote Jefferson." You can read it for yourself and weep at the insanity, or for a more detailed description of the disaster in our educational system you might read my post from October 31st titled Crimes Of The Educators from a book reviewed there of that title..
          So, it took about a century but our youth are now primarily under the control of employment specialists in full academic regalia. This is why our youth have no idea the horrors of communism or even understand what communism is. They are enrolled, cajoled and controlled, and this at a time when we need young people to stand up for their country, but they mostly sit back and watch others march, if not marching themselves, to a socialist ethos.
       The Democrat Party was hijacked. Former Senator Jim Webb entered the primaries in this past election but found out just how much....or rather just how little....the Democrat Party from his youth  still existed.
       As for the media.....let me paraphrase the first words of the 1970 film Love Story....What can you say about a 326 year old profession that died? That it was once honorable and courageous? That it once loved its country and its constitution and all of us? I watched network news from about 9:00 o'clock on this past election night and heard the commentators offer the most inane comments on why Hillary Clinton was not winning. Not once....not one solitary time did anyone mention the Pay-to-Play of the Clinton Foundation or the daily stream of WikiLeaks that showed the corruption in the Democrat Party and Mrs. Clinton! Folks...this is still America....and no cadre of communist rabble-rousers can by themselves turn us into a banana republic ripe for a Marxist takeover.....but we can do it to ourselves and are in the process of doing just that....Donald Trump notwithstanding.
      Speaking of Donald Trump.....as I have penned in these posts many times....this groundswell of patriotism began long ago while Mr. Trump was still firing people on his television show. Trump added nothing except his bravado but ultimately he was the horse that would carry the mail. We celebrated.....well I should only speak for myself.....I celebrated more the departure of the other miscreants and misfits leaving than his arriving. Apparently on yesterday's television show 60 Minutes he actually advocated abolishing the electoral college....in the future of course. This comment alone....but there have been others...shows that he will need full time guidance because the wisdom will not be coming from within Mr. Trump.
       So this is somewhat how it happened...how we find ourselves counting the days until Barack Obama leaves office and then hoping against hope for Donald Trump to become another Ronald Reagan. I try to block this from my mind but when I look at Donald Trump I see King Saul. Conservatives demanded a king, figuratively speaking. God relented and gave us what we demanded, but it wasn't a king that we needed, or a champion, rather it was the King of Kings. 
        Stephen K. Bannon was front and certain in the news today as he was named President-elect Donald Trump's chief strategist and senior counselor. I tried my best in posts over the last few months to contact Mr. Bannon about this issue of Donald Trump's religious beliefs, or lack of them. I included these words... "he (Donald Trump) will need to at least regretfully admit that he has never given due reverence to the God who had blessed this nation from before it was even a nation, nor has he done what our forefathers and Founding Fathers had done in acknowledging the providence of Almighty God in our welfare."  Pray for this man Donald Trump throughout the day, for he is surely heading into battle and has not sought nor even considered God's hand in the destiny of nations.

"For There Is Born To You This Day.... A Savior..."

         For the longest time in America it was essentially a Macy's type of Christmas....and I loved about every minute of it. My wife and I went out to dinner last night and I specifically wanted to go to one of the cheaper steak houses....for I wanted a little trip down Memory Lane. I need to give a little explanation here:
        Christmas in Pittsburgh in the early 60s was a simple thing. There really weren't any fancy gifts to give to the kids. Oh we thought they were great but compared to today they were very simple. As for myself, some years we had a Christmas tree and others we didn't and I really didn't take much notice to that. The real big thing for me was our annual bus trip downtown...for their was no such thing as a mall. Hopefully it was snowing and it seemed like it usually was. We would trek from Macy's...excuse me, Kaufmann's on the Mon River side to Gimbals by where the U. S. Steel Building would eventually go up, to Hornes down by the point, while stopping in many stores between them, but my fondest memory was the new and exciting steak restaurant at the point called the Flame where from the street you could see the flames cooking the steaks....and it was cheap....cheap enough for anyone to afford. So last night I wanted just a little bit of that memory....and I got it....and a good steak also.
        Jesus was in Christmas back then....if only as a baby. A number of movies at the time showed pretty clearly what Christmas was to us....Holiday Inn and White Christmas being two. You probably will not remember this film but it was very typical.....The Apartment with Jack Lemmon, Shirley (I am God) MacClaine and Fred MacMurray. It revolved around a national insurance company and some of its managers and lowly Jack Lemmon who provides his apartment to them to meet with young woman. A company Christmas party was prominent in the story.....gifts....drinking....a party....and plenty of fun. This was Christmas in America in 1960. Jesus was still there....somehow....and we just assumed that all was well....but as the years passed even this changed.
        They started taking Jesus out of Christmas. At first we began to use other words such as Xmas and holiday. More years passed and certain institutions, including our government, started to ban any religious significance for the day.  Conservatives in America were outraged and 'putting Jesus back in Christmas' became some what of a battle cry. One thing led to another and the conservatives won....we have Donald Trump as our President-elect! So we can go back to our baby in a manger and the company Christmas Party... with gifts...and drinking...and plenty of fun....all of this of course leading up to New Year's Eve and Times Squire....only Guy Lombardo and his orchestra are long gone....replaced by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Beyonce.
        Here's my point folks...you know I always have a point....Jesus has been out of Christmas in America.... and maybe this was a good thing... for it was becoming a mockery of the birth of our Savior. Now before you get too upset, yes there were...moments. Some of the hymns that were composed over the centuries were magnificent in exalting the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, and many Christians throughout America simply gave thanks on this day for the fulfilled prophesy of the birth of Christ that would thirty years later lead to Jesus ministry of three years where He would proclaim to us the glorious gospel of salvation. Yes there were moments in our modern Christmas in America but in the last thirty years or so even those moments were few and it has been as if we have forgotten altogether the birth of Jesus.
         This is therefore my hope! Jesus was taken out of Christmas...we no longer took joy in.the angels singing praises in the heavens while the shepherds could only watch and listen in awe...and Simeon was no longer there to proclaim...."for my eyes have seen Your salvation..." We have gone through our Christless Christmas period and should God will it...it may be time for Jesus to be put back into Christmas! The international news of this world is moving as a speeding locomotive...without brakes... down a mountain. That news may bring with it a sobering....and we may indeed put Jesus back in Christmas....but not in mere words such as 'Christmas parties' or 'Merry Christmas'....and not only as a newborn baby...as glorious as that was...but in the hope of the returning Savior....the King of Kings and Lord of Glory!

Pulpit.....Not The Podium

         The following preface is from February of 2014 and the post below it is originally from 2009:

         Radio host Mark Levin will be honored in two days at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He is to receive the inaugural Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award. Mark Levin deserves to be honored. His books and his radio program have been invaluable to an America under siege and I have written of them often but our problems are deeper than even the tyranny in our midst.
         During those first years after a burden of sin appeared on my back and I came to the cross of Calvary and found redemption in what Jesus Christ accomplished on that day over two thousand years ago I found myself frequenting Christian conferences. They were a time of great joy and I'm so thankful for them but if one is not careful one can live only for the conferences and seminars and begin to live vicariously through the speakers and come to depend upon their efforts to sustain one's enthusiasm.
         Only a reformation in American Christianity holds any hope for us to survive as a nation. God's Holy Spirit is the only one who can transform us by the renewing of our minds. It is only upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ that we can depend. Should God have mercy upon America it will be through our pulpits that He reforms us and there is scant evidence at the present time of such mercy. The vast majority of my brothers and sisters in Christ would disagree with that assessment but that same vast majority has been given little to compare with present day evangelicalism.

Pulpit....Not The Podium   

         One of the running themes in these posts is the need for America to humble itself before God, before God humbles us before our numerous enemies. Yesterday, Texas Governor Rick Perry hosted a major prayer event in Houston of upwards of 25,000 people with that very message. One might therefore expect the writer of these posts to wholeheartedly rejoice in this but that's not the case. I agree with the diagnosis, but not prescription of a media event.
         We are falling apart in every way imaginable. Our Congress is clueless which is a description far too generous to use on our White House. Our culture is in chaos. Our media is in denial while our enemies are certain of our collapse. Pep rallies are not the answer especially when politics is part of it. I'm not questioning the intent of the organizers or Governor Perry for I know what it is like to finally figure out that America is collapsing because its reliance upon God has vanished, because we have gone our own way,  and God is permitting us to reap what we have sown.
          I have probably written a dozen times on the need for America to humble itself before God and I hope in those posts that I made it known that I was talking about myself as much as anyone who might read it. Ultimately, we do not have to see America's sins clearer...we have to see more clearly the one sinned against (God.) A deficient view of the holiness of God can result in feelings of a satisfactory repentance and the consequent projection upon others of the need to do so also. A heightened view of the holiness of God will hardly get one off the hook so easily.
         The Puritan mind could see clearer... God and His character, hence repentance was an everyday occurrence as they humbly approached God for all their needs. The secular mind of today sees the Puritan mind as a lifelong quest to quench joy in anyone and everyone and the evangelical mind is a product of these times, on display in Christian bookstores, Christian music concerts and events, and fundraising telethons, and is much more susceptible to a good gimmick than what is really needed.  
         The podium, the bookstore and the blogosphere can indeed address our inflated view of our minds and ourselves and the turmoil that lies ahead but only the pulpit can effectively deflate that view, soften the heart and ease the burdened soul through the proclamation of redemption through the blood of Christ as written in God's Word. The speaker on the dais and the soapbox tends to point out every culprit except the one standing on the dais and the soapbox and those gathered together to listen.
         We attended a Lutheran church (Missouri Synod) this past week while traveling. I scoured the local church websites looking for a Lord's Day sermon topic on Christ and, as I had done in the past, wound up choosing the Lutheran church, for the atonement is at least always present in the liturgy if not the sermon. As it happened, a "retired" minister was filling the pulpit for the regular pastor. In essence, his sermon was "Christ is the only answer." A worshipper came up to my wife and recommended that we should come back next week when the regular pastor is in the pulpit but I think that we were blessed with the right day, the right minister and the right message. In our storied past, calls for national days of prayer and fasting have been corporate, where the composer of the call was in need of repentance as any of the represented, but ultimately the pulpit is what God utilizes in calling individuals and nations to repentance. Unfortunately for today, our pulpits are in need of awakening. Such is our extreme dilemma.

Once again I would like to recommend refnet.fm as a resource for a comparison of our church age today and that of times past.