Ann Coulter

         Ann Coulter is probably smarter than all of them...conservative commentators, radio talk show hosts etc. She' certainly more courageous than any of them. She wrote a book last year, as you probably know, titled In Trump We Trust. My post from last August on that book follows this.
         Ann and Sean Hannity had a Twitter battle earlier this week and she addresses it in her latest column posted just hours ago. I recommend that you read it at anncoulter.com. I'll give you one line from that column.....she's referring to Sean...."He would endorse communism it Trump decided to implement 'The Communist Manifesto.' (Which the GOP's health care bill actually does)"
         It seems that Sean interviewed Ann on his show but her negative comments on President Trump were edited out. Did Sean edit them because he's carrying water for President Trump right now and didn't want to spill any of it, or was it time constraints as Sean claims? I have no idea, but if he did censor Coulter's comments it surely backfired because it would have only served to highlight the problem that Ann Coulter has with the man whose name adorns the cover of her last book.
         At the end of this post from last August I wrote... concerning the poorly chosen title..."Will Christians see the ominous unintended inference? Will Pastors weep from the pulpits over what we have come to place our trust in? Will God have mercy upon us as He did with the repentant Ninevites upon the arrival of a foul-smelling, muck-stained, wide-eyed prophet?" The answers are...no....nope....and probably not.        

In  Whom Do We Trust

          The best thing about Ann Coulter's new book In Trump We Trust...E Pluribus Awesome! is that it is a small size hardback and only about 180 pages. This isn't a sarcastic remark. As a former bookstore owner, I know that on current affairs topics...the easier the read-the easier the sell, and I hope that people do take notice of the book...but for more than one reason.
          Ann Coulter is smart. She talks in a such a rapid-fire fashion that her books are easier to digest than her words when she is interviewed. And she is funny, I mean if you were in a submerged submarine with no power and no hope to be saved....she would be able to make you laugh. The stories and the facts that she gives are not new to us but her take on them is often profound. She takes these zingers and fires them like fast balls whose pop in the catcher's mitt gets the whole stadium's attention.
           No matter what issues have endeared Donald Trump to Americans over the course of this election, and there have been many, Coulter brings them back in a very concise fashion that refreshes the reader, if the reader even needs refreshed, on why they went hog-wild on Donald Trump to begin with. It's the type of book that makes you want to take notes, and reread them on a daily basis in preparation for conversation with liberals. I think that I may know why Ann Coulter has never married... she must spend all of her time categorizing and filing news stories, ridiculous quotes and absurd comments by both liberals and Republican elites. (but somehow she missed Mitt Romney's?)
        There, I've written a lot of nice things about Ann Coulter's In Trump We Trust. As election cycle political books go it is powerful, but I didn't purchase this book to be reminded of why so many people liked what they were hearing from Donald Trump. I drove for 45 minutes to buy it and sat right down with a cup of HerbaGreen tea to read through it because I had to know if Ann Coulter had any idea how those four words of the title might resonate with anyone who knows the history and meaning of the phrase In God We Trust!
         The closest the author came to even touching on the concept of God came in three pages under the heading of Evangelical Voters? Simple! Just Ask President Huckabee. There are not many issues that Ann Coulter is clueless on but this is one of them. She is so conservative-Tea Party hip, so devastatingly today, and so passionately polemic, in this book anyway, that she is deaf to God's thunderous warnings to a nation that seeks redemption from anyone but Him!
         This title may have been given the author just as were the spoken words given to Balaam's donkey in the Old Testament Book of Numbers, or as the sudden summoning prowess to the Witch of Endor. Ann Coulter might as well buy the granite tombstone to be placed over America's heritage, a heritage she thinks that she is protecting, and have her book title etched in an arc across the top, for placing our trust in ourselves while forsaking the God of our beginnings and our multitudinous blessings is what brought us to where we are today.
         Francis Scott Key gave America that phrase in the full lyrics to what would become our national anthem... the verse near the end reading...."And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust'"... this sung to the same notes and in place of the words we are more familiar with...  "Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there."
        We will have to wait and see if this paraphrasing becomes the single most alarming message in Ann Coulter's newest book. Will Christians see the ominous unintended inference? Will Pastors weep from the pulpits over what we have come to place our trust in? Will God have mercy upon us as He did with the repentant Ninevites upon the arrival of a foul-smelling, muck-stained, wide-eyed prophet?
       

House Of Cards

        The term 'house of cards' apparently goes well back into the 17th century. It points to a structure built where if one key piece is removed the entire structure will fall. Presdent Trump's foreign policy is a house of cards. China is a mess. The president trusted not in a man but in an ideology....communism.....and that doesn't appear to be working out too well.. There's a key election coming up in that behemoth of a nation later this year... well...the Communist party delegates will vote anyway... and to make matters worse they have a bubble economy right now. We had better not depend on them for the time of day.
        So what's happening with the navy and candidate Trump's promise to build the fleet up to 355 ships? Well nothings happening really. There are plans..."under discussion"... to drastically increase the number of seamen but that's essentially what they are....plans. President Trump's budget for navy ships is about the same as was President Obama's. The budget...and entitlements....come first.
         President Trump is overextending himself right now. He's listening to somebody that he shouldn't be listening to. The dye has been cast on North Korea.  Syria is a disaster in the making. This is the deep state back in charge and their strategies in play and can very easily bring Russia into armed conflict with us. And for what? If you believe that President Trump is doing this to protect the people in Syria then you have taken the bait....hook...line...and sinker....but no one really cares. Everyone is focused on CNN right now. That's what's important....seeing the Democrats squirm.
         Well we still have the draft anyway. Think about that for a minute. Who gets drafted and who doesn't? There won't be any student deferments this time around.....finish your semester and it's ..."Greetings." The ships and the armaments will be started on in a hurry because they will be needed immediately. But don't bother the Republican Congress with this... they're too busy making sure that the health insurance companies continue to make huge profits. And don't mention the bubbles in our economy either....they like to think positive!
         

Tweets Without Thoughts

          White House deputy assistant to President Trump Sebastian Gorka said on Breitbart Radio only a few minutes ago that the purpose of announcing that they know that Syria may be preparing for another chemical attack was just that....telling Syria that we have the ability to know what they are doing. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that the purpose of our involvement in Syria was to "eliminate" ISIS.... "if however"......the key phrase being...."if however"....."If , however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price." Our ambassador the United Nations, Nikki Haley, 'idioted (aka tweeted)...."Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people."
          I submit to you that what the White House is doing here is first and foremost a coordinated and concerted effort to reposition strengths in the Middle East to benefit our foreign policy strategies. There is 0% transparency here! The following is being reported by Fox News as I type...."Several State Department officials involved in coordinating such announcements told the Associated Press they were caught off guard by the warning, which didn't appear to be discussed in advance with other national security agencies....typically, the State Department, the Pentagon and U. S. intelligence agencies wold be consulted before the White House issued such a declaration."
         The tweet, as it has come to be known, is too often a reflex action and the antithesis of a measured response. It plays to an American public that gets groggy with more than 140 characters in print. Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity recently found themselves thwacking each other with tweets.
          The king in Hamlet knelt to offer a prayer he knew not to be sincere. Upon rising he said: "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go." If I might humbly add to that....tweets without thoughts come from below!

We As A Nation Stand In Contempt Of Court

          We are not a civilized nation anymore. You're familiar by now I'm sure with the controversy over the skit by comedienne Kathy Griffin with a mask of Donald Trump used as a prop of a bloody severed head. Christians and churches are literally everywhere but we are more pagan as a nation than we are Christian. There is a reason for this.
          I'm looking off in the distance as I type to three medium sized trees. One looks to be a red maple, another possibly an ash tree of some sort and the third....possibly another type of maple. They are very still and then a strong wind passes and mightily moves the branches of first the ash tree...then the red maple...and then the third tree. I can hear the leaves bristle from about fifty yards away. It's beautiful to watch. Then they are still once again.
          God's very Word to us says, as Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John...."The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit." The passage of course is where Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born again. Puritan Matthew Henry described the moving of the Holy Spirit referred to here in..."The wind bloweth where it listeth for us; God directs it. The Spirit sends his influences where, and when, on whom, and in what measure and degree, he pleases. Though the causes are hidden, the effects are plain, when the soul is brought to mourn for sin, and to breathe after Christ."
          This Puritan divine continued in his commentary...."....he that believeth in Christ is not condemned. Though he has been a great sinner, yet he is not dealt with according to what his sins deserve. How great is the sin of unbelievers! God sent One to us? How great the misery of unbelievers! They are condemned already....a present condemnation."
           I'll use a very odd analogy here. Rush Limbaugh today spent considerable time and effort trying to explain to his listening audience that the United States participation in the Paris Climate Agreement will continue unless...unless...President Trump actively and purposely orders us out. If he simply stands by and does nothing....we remain in. He can criticize it all he wants but unless he actually 'legally extracts us'....we remain in.
           I chose this topic, passage and commentary by Mathew Henry to hopefully demonstrate that we....every single solitary one of us....remain in our sin.....unless we have been legally extracted from condemnation. We can say what we want...proclaim what we want...and believe what we want...but unless we have been 'born again'....we remain in condemnation!
           This is the 'reason' that I alluded to in the first paragraph of this post. When I started typing the sun was shining and I actually had to move into the shade. Storm clouds have since moved in and I am now under cover as a heavy rain causes those same tree branches to droop as under a strain. Thunder is one continuous crack after another. America was once in the sun where we had time to plant our fields and enjoy the riches of the land....but a storm has violently moved in and it would behoove every one of us to consider not only the state of our nation and its people but our own legal condition.... as we shall stand one day....quite possibly very soon...before our Creator/Judge and our God....and should we have been legally extracted out of condemnation....or born again...our Redeemer!

The Hard Fact

I've been critical of the overall media, both entertainment and news, for the entire 8 1/2 years of these posts. My very first post on November 27th of 2008 was titled A La Carte Cable describing an American public that was "at the mercy of the cable package." The media has been corrupted and compromised for a long time and this is one of the most important issues facing Americans today. One of the facts that our side emphasizes is that recently the media spends a majority of its air time on the Russia fiasco with very little time on important and legitimate issues. This is true.....but we....conservative talk radio..... essentially are doing the same thing albeit not in the service of evil but of the despised establishment. We spend even more of a percentage of air time defending President Trump from the mainstream media than pointing out his many and often egregious move to this despised establishment. The following post is only a week old:

The Big Catch

         They had a couple of meetings and released some press videos. The globalist tech giants then praised President Trump for seeking to work with them. This is only part of the story. The Left wants President Trump impeached and presumably convicted but they would be just as happy with a resignation... a la Richard Nixon and Pope Benedict XVI. They just want him out.
          Conservative talk show hosts....(the description doesn't sound too impressive does it but without them we would be a bona fide totalitarian state by now)....initially most of them were very critical of President Trump cozying up to the Republican establishment but this assault on our constitutional republic in the form of anti-Trump hysteria has not only stopped legitimate analysis  and beneficial criticism of President Trump by conservatives but returned him to his white horse as a perceived champion. In other words....these crises that we are in, a large part of which is due to a lack of wisdom, continues to exponentially grow.
           In light of the anti-Trump hysteria Jared Kushner all of a sudden doesn't look all that bad.....and neither do the tech globalists. We are making yet another fundamental mistake. When the opposition ramps up their attack, one doesn't compromise principles. One ramps up one's defense of principles. Donald Trump is seriously flawed in many ways. He has lied to us on a number of occasions but Rush Limbaugh seems to have conveniently forgotten that. He gives leverage, support and even praise to the communist government in China and then makes a big deal about confronting the communist government in Cuba. This is all politics folks with no principles. This is the art of the deal.
           The impeach or impair President Trump hysteria is every bit as destructive to our national defense as the conservative talk show hosts make it out to be but we took the bait, for twenty feet or so above us sits a monstrous yacht with all the tech giants and their globalist guests on board reeling us in on a big catch.
           For our part, we are as outraged as anyone as to this assault on our constitutional republic in the form of attempts to destabilize a president in times of national emergencies. It is despicable and unconscionable. There is an often memorized biblical proverb that may apply here...."As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." Regurgitating everything that President Trump tweets is not sharpening him or ourselves....it is dulling both! Yes there is friction. Friction generates heat and sharpens iron! Even this post to those who disagree with it can sharpen both of us.

    

The Christian And Politics

This preface from four years ago and the following post was one of my first from eight and a half years ago. I'll leave it up for a day or so:  

        There are certain issues that are non-negotiable to many conservatives. Most pertain to religion and Biblical truth but some revolve around our Constitution.  Is it unreasonable to hold to non-negotiable opinions.... opinions that do not change with the fickle fleeting passions, pragmatism and desires of modern man? It's our belief that the God who brought this universe into being out of nothing also brought this nation into being through of an assortment of diverse and imperfect men, and that should we deny this and reject God, that this nation would then proceed on its own....and into oblivion.
        Our beliefs will not be changed by opinion polls and we place no hope in military might without God's favor, for as the mouse can frighten the elephant so we could be routed by the seemingly most insignificant of enemies if we deny Him who has sustained us up till now. We also know that no enemy is too great, no mountain too high and no valley too deep should God will us to succeed. We would choose to lose in the political arena before we would we deny Him.....and therein is the rub.....we are willing to lose in this life while others are only willing to lose in the next. The following blog was written a few weeks after the 2008 general election.
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November 30, 2008

         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 or 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 grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
         We lost our moorings in this long before we lost this last election. Our churches are social gatherings with political causes meant to assuage our 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 Christ and prefer 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.

Be Careful Placing Your Trust In Him

         Conservatives are following President Trump every bit as blindly as Progressives followed President Obama.... a phenomenon of which we used to be amazed. True, the narrative is different...President Trump's being patriotic and somewhat wholesome while President Obama's was purposely self-destructive, Marxist and literally anti-American but the psychological traits are similar in that both parties achieved what they wanted....their man in office....and then they promptly quit thinking. All of this Russian hysteria, as difficult as it's been, has served to bolster Trump's base support, for legitimate and necessary critical analysis of President Trump is now depicted as harmful.....even as part of the effort to undermine the administration....as our attention is focused on the impreachment hysteria.
          Listening to President Trump's speech at the recent rally in Iowa should be disturbing to the majority of us who voted for Donald Trump....but it isn't. There was a lot of obvious deception in the President's words but radio host Laura Ingraham could only bring herself to describe that deception as...'some exaggeration.' The ego displayed....in my opinion....actually exceeded that of Barack Obama...something I wasn't sure was even possible. He mentioned the 'solar wall'...an interesting idea and may even be a very good idea....but he had to add that it was his idea. Usually only an adolescent would say something like that. "They love me in Iowa....They don't want me to leave"...is that what he said?
          His  praise for the Chinese leader....the Communist Chinese leader....should have sickened us....but we scrutinize nothing that he says. We have now totally bought into Jared Kushner. I tell you folks....I observe this young man....and it's frightening. I doubt that he shares one scintilla of the conservative values that we do. Typical of rallies like this, the president threw out another line meant to reel the audience in even more. He said that the administration would seek a five-year wait for immigrants to be able to avail themselves of welfare benefits. President Trump does this type of thing all the time. Just about all of it has a window of years before anyone can prove that he wasn't quite telling the truth, but that's what he wants...a few years to keep his conservative support.
          I am not nor ever was a Never Trumper. I celebrated as much as anyone on November 8th, but I cringe at how conservatives are turning out to be so gullible and easy to manipulate. We think that President Trump took us out of the Paris Climate Agreement. He made a statement and no one in the government even knows what he meant by it. There is a way that our exit can be done....and there are ways that it can just be made to look like we exited. Until we see something concrete...we are still in that thing. The healthcare fiascos alone should have woke us up.
         Hillary is not president and we should all be thankful for that but to my conservative friends....if I have any left.....take what you can get from President Trump and be thankful for it....support him as he directs our military in the dangerous days ahead.....but be careful placing your trust in him!

   

I Know Whom I Have Believed

 As a Lord's Day post I chose the following from 2009. I can still say...."I know whom I have believed......and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day."

         I walked into a Christian book store for the very first time early in 1982.  God had already at that time been working upon both my heart and my mind, and after browsing the shelves for a little while I wound up buying a book that peeked my interest. It was Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell.
         I had just finished reading the Pulitzer Prize winning book (general non-fiction 1974) The Denial Of Death by Ernest Becker that made a good case against religion. Before that I had read Eric Hoffer's small classic The True Believer, that since its first publication in 1951 has been a powerful argument against anyone that believed anything....passionately. I was so enamored with The Denial Of Death as I was reading it that I tore it in half so that I could carry some of it in my back pocket at all times. Then came Evidence That Demands A Verdict. 
          It wasn't McDowell's intellect that effected me, nor even the truths in the book, for surely others had read it and not been affected. I probably would have fallen for any powerful philosophy at the time for I was a man with a void in my life who wondered if there were any true purposes in this life? I was altruistic, or so I thought, for it hadn't been that long since as a volunteer for Ted Kennedy's campaign for the Democrat nomination for president that I phoned an entire community of Democrats, urging them to go to the polls and vote for Ted.
          God had other plans as He had taken a layer of veil off of my eyes and I had a glimpse of His majesty. I saw my immediate purpose in life which was to become but one more person to bathe in the sin cleansing blood of Calvary. Had I known the long path that I would have to take to even understand this glorious gospel I had embraced, I'm sure that I would have been very discouraged. If I knew even now my specific limitations and the errors in my thinking, I might be saddened but not discouraged, for I more fully understand that we indeed are but pilgrims, and that His promises are true or I would not have made it this far....35 years later.
          This may sound odd, but when I see an elderly person, feeble and wrinkled, a person who was young and attractive at one time, it consoles me greatly, for although in man I see the reality of a quickly passing life, I can agree with Paul who wrote in his second epistle to Timothy I know whom I have believed...!
          Take a peek at your watch. You cannot stop what that second hand, moving right before your eyes, represents. Do you have arguments against God or even His existence? Let me tell you that there is hope, that hope is that there is a veil over your eyes that can be lifted, and that hope is in Him who will lift that veil... and who said..."I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall. never thirst..... (and) whoever comes to me I will never cast out." 

A Spiritual Portfolio

            The 24th chapter of Matthew is one of the key chapters in the New Testament that relates directly to the very last of the last days before Jesus returns. There are corresponding chapters in the gospels of Mark and Luke, those being the 13th and 21st chapters respectively. They all relate what was talked about as Jesus and his disciples left the temple complex and walked down the valley and up on the Mount of Olives....in this what has come to be known as the Olivet Discourse. It should come natural to Christians today to refer over and over again to these chapters but have we paid much attention to the preceding chapter where Jesus lambastes the scribes and the Pharisees?
            You see the Pharisees locked up the kingdom and didn't let people in. They didn't go in and they wouldn't let anyone else in either. Hmm. That's sounds a little like today where the Pharisees...in this case liberal pastors and teachers....do not preach that one has to be born again.....they don't know what it is.....don't like the sound of it......and they won't let others go near it. What they do is change the gospel itself into an 'easy believism' minus the hard truths of the gospel so that they can not only partake of this gospel that does not save but lead those under their teaching to the same fate.
            Jesus was very specific in admonishing these Pharisees and scribes with woe after woe after woe....seven in total....one of which is confusing enough to cause anyone to skip over to the next chapter. The Pharisees said that it didn't really mean anything if the people took an oath on the sanctuary, but let them take an oath on the gold that they put on the altar in the sanctuary. Wow, that really grabs your attention doesn't it? It seems that to the Pharisees, God's dwelling place wasn't the important part in this what was an unbiblical transaction to begin with but rather what was placed on the altar. How does this come into to play for us? The church of today does not value the words that the church of yesterday was built upon. It therefore does not honor He whom gave us those words. The church therefore is not what's holy. The Pharisee of today still misleads the people by failing to distinguish between "the holy and the profane."
           Faithful Christians have been martyred throughout the ages....all of whom in one way or another were standing for truth....but stand for truth today and the very people who certainly would if pressed honor the memories of those martyred proclaiming the gospel are ready to denounce anyone who proclaims the very same truths those men of the past did. Jesus continued with......"Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town." Folks that's exactly what the Presbyterian church did to J. Gresham Machen when he called them out for departing from the gospel! Charles Haddon Spurgeon received similar condemnations as have many others, and as do any today who call the church to account for failing to preach and teach salvation by grace alone....through faith alone....in Christ alone....all to the glory of God alone....and Scripture alone as our "sole infallible rule of faith and practice."
           The chapter concludes with this..."See your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord'." This surely describes the liberal Christian church in the world today along with the accompanying societies..... for they are desolate....but they shall see He whom they have kept from the people...and they shall see the kingdom they will not enter.
           Most financial advisors recommend that 10% of one's portfolio be in gold. It would prove invaluable to us to reserve at least 10% of our daily Scripture reading in prophesy....I prefer 50% due to the chaotic unravelling of society right before our very eyes.... for therein is spiritual gold that will still be a treasure through whatever lies ahead.
       
         
         

Why The Karen Handel Win Means Little To Nothing

 Republicans are cheering after yesterday's special election win by Karen Handel in Georgia, and also after four other Republican special election wins around the country, but it all means little to nothing. My defense of this claim will seem a bit overboard if not outrageous and probably is a little bit overboard but I need to state it this way to emphasize the point.
          Roughly 90% of the Republicans in our Congress are effectually worthless which means the roughly 95% of the entire Congress are effectually worthless. So even if Karen Handel turns out to be one of the few effective ones it will change little. This is a hard fact and difficult to even consider let alone digest so let me backtrack just a little. There are many...many....good men and women in the Republican Party in our Congress but for whatever reason, and only they can answer that, they are ineffective to the point of being mere pawns of the elites than representatives of us.
          The Republican Party establishment class is about as beneficial to the American people as the Democrat Party....which is zilch. The only difference is that the mission of the Republican Party, what Professor Angelo Codevilla has now famously described as being junior members of the UniParty, is to pretend that they are different and when in power to do as little as humanly possible as to keeping their promises in order to retain their positions of power. They will do nothing outside of that small area that the leadership of the establishment class allots them to give out. Yes, they will do some things...but this because they must or their base will run off and start another politically party.
          Conservatives will be excited over this 'Trump' victory in Georgia, totally oblivious to the fact that they had just routed the establishment class this past November only to have that establishment class come right back into power! Friends...this would only happen again and again! How many times are we going to fall for this? How many times are we going to pump ourselves up by yelling USA...USA...USA....or....Trump....Trump....Trump? They're playing us folks!
           Does this mean that we don't come out and vote for a Karen Handel? No....peruse my posts over the past eight and a half years....even 5% in our Congress who are honest and courageous can hold the line.

Miranda Right

I'm bringing this post back because the healthcare bill is back on the front burner: 

Miranda Rights

        Miranda and Cosmo marry in the city's biggest high society event of the year. Miranda had an inheritance while Cosmo had the Hollywood looks. Family members of both took bets on how long the marriage would last because everyone knew who Cosmo was, but there was no dissuading Miranda, for she thought the world of him. They honeymooned in outer space courtesy of Elon Musk.
        Back in their new home, the matrimonial bliss lasted only a few months before the arguments started. "They were right".....thought Miranda....everyone....in their warnings that Cosmo was a bore, an egotist and not a nice man. Cosmo got what he wanted out of the deal and Miranda was humiliated, but the marriage essentially ended the night that while in the midst of an argument Cosmo put a finger in Miranda's face and yelled...."I only married you for your money....I never loved you....Go ahead and divorce me....I'll fight you for every penny.'
         Folks this is a microcosm of what happened in the last election. We had what Donald Trump wanted while Trump courted us as a king would his future queen to get an heir. The defining moment when the marriage essentially ended between Donald Trump and true conservatives came in his tweet threatening the Freedom Caucus after the Obamacare Establishment scam went down.
          Friends....and if you truly love America then you are friends....at least in my eyes. You could put him back on his pedestal if you want....but you will someday wind up as a battered spouse. The only reason that Donald Trump is not this day building another tower somewhere or working on a television show is because of conservatives like those on the Freedom Caucus.....and us....and probably you. This has been a long battle.....and yet newcomer to the family Donald Trump tweets....during the honeymoon....

"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team,  & fast....We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"

         Let me interpret this inane tweet for you...."I only married you for your money...."I never loved you....Go ahead and divorce me....I'll fight you for every penny." Now if you want, you can accept Cosmo's roses and candy and a card with a poem inside that reads....

      "My sweet Babboo....we must make up, & fast....
             or Obamacare will stay and tax reform will....will...I can't think of anything that rhymes with
             fast, but it will be really really bad."

  But the next card you receive will probably read.....

       "Pursuant to the provisions in the Republican Party platform URSCRWD 2017, you are hereby given an eviction notice to vacate the Oval Office, the NSC, all those congressional chair thingamajigs and the White House Press Briefing Room."

Note: your Miranda Rights....You have the right to remain silent....anything you say can and will be used against you...for these people do not fight fair. You have a right to an attorney....a mediator....you cannot pay him....unlike Cosmo he will never leave you or forsake you.....His name is Jesus Christ!

      

What President Trump Doesn't Need

         OK, you explain it to me.....figuratively speaking.....300 plus million people.....great heritage.....amber waves of grain......plenty of money for education.....so how does a country like this produce 150 million people that cheer as their country surrenders to the most vile of barbarians waging war against them; and how do they consistently fall for the lamest con games?
         The fallacy of petitio principil, more commonly known as begging the question, is where one attempts to prove a proposition....using a premise....that has no provable validity. The ravenous and rabid demands that President Trump be immediately impeached is but one example.....impeach him....why....because he is Donald Trump that's why. Nothing more is needed....he is Donald Trump....impeach him.
           Barack Obama's entire eight years in office and Hillary Clinton's campaign to succeed him will be, the Lord of this universe willing, historical testimony to a people incapable of keeping their liberty. Calls to impeach Donald Trump are ludicrous almost beyond belief. The essence of being a judge is to make a decision on the evidence given and rule in line with law and regulations. It is about as important a responsibility as one can hold, important not only to individuals but to the whole population; We would be better off today in our federal judicial system using a Magic 8 Ball. How can all of this and much much more have happened in a nation with such a great heritage...amber waves of grain...and plenty of money for education?
            Well there's two answers to this. The first has utility and addresses causality but the second identifies the core of the disability. Greed, narcissism, Marxist ideology, laziness...these and other causes have contributed to the collapse of our culture and imminent collapse of our republic but God brought this all about by simply giving us what we wanted....autonomy in all of our decisions.
            This is where President Donald Trump comes in again. He was going to fix all this. It didn't matter that he was one of the more egregious perpetrators of greed, narcissism and arrogance amongst the world's power brokers....it didn't matter that he didn't have a clue about God or even care at all. He was a Norman Vincent Peale disciple, and Peale's god was his god. In spite of this, Christians flocked to candidate and now president Trump and shout....Hail Trump!
             So we have people on one side who want to impeach Trump, these are people who don't have a clue as to the whys and wherefores of what articles of impeachment are or would consist of. On the other side we have those who think they are going to make America great again....oblivious to the words of Scripture that tells them to 'go ahead and build....and I'll tear down again.'
             Friends....do I have any left....this is our predicament....we have utterly failed to remain true to the God who established, blessed and sustained our nation. Oh you're not one of us who failed....congratulations.....now back to the more honest reader.....we have forgotten God and He has warned us for upwards of and increasingly in clarity for well over half a century. And what did we do? We turned to Donald Trump. Judgment is upon us and we can't see it because that blindness in itself is part of the judgment.
             The last thing that Donald Trump needs in the days ahead is a horde of equally imperceptive and uncomprehending loyalists. He needs as much of a humbled citizenry as we can muster to support him against the lunacy of the Left and in the great and terrifying challenges ahead of him. He needs Ann Coulter's column a heck of a lot more than he needs his daughter's advice. He needs critiqued more than cajoled.
             What do we need....mercy....forgiveness....a humble heart....if we are Christians a return to our first love.....and enough vision of the battlefield before us to know that unless God directs our steps we will surely stumble and be no more.
         

The Many 'Sacks' Of Christian Rome

        Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that if the situation escalates into war with North Korea that it would be a "catastrophic war"....and this as the United States is deploying its third carrier based Naval Strike Force to the western Pacific. President Trump had laid it on the line previously when he described this potential war as a..."major, major conflict."
        All of America was on edge during those thirteen days of October 1962, I remember it as a twelve year old, yet today with a similar and even more intense situation we hardly give serious thought to what is going on with the Korean Peninsula. Now it's conjecture here but I expect that pulpits around America in October of 1962 spent considerable time in prayer on what was happening in and around Cuba. I doubt if many pulpits even mentioned North Korea yesterday.....in what is supposedly a much more religious climate and America than a half century ago.
        We have become accustomed to a North Korean leader doing something rash followed by a tense week or two and then a return to 'normalcy' for a few years before the Korean dictator decides for whatever reason to cause trouble again. Staying on the same 38th parallel but moving to a different part of the world, George W. Bush was faced with a very similar but somewhat less immanent crisis in 2008 when Iran escalated their nuclear weapons program. The feeling at the time was that dealing with Iran might hurt John McCain's chances in the election. McCain would deal with it after he won....but he didn't win. Barack Obama told Israel to give him until December to work out something with Iran. That was December of 2009! He then spent the next seven plus years not only not dealing with Iran but bolstering their nuclear program!
         So here we are.....2017! North Korea is close if they aren't there already to having the capability of exploding a nuclear device either over America, in one of our ports, or actually reaching our mainland with a missile! Yet we as a people are almost in ho-hum mode. The liberals are too concerned with possibly impeaching Donald Trump to worry about a silly thing like a nuclear catastrophe, while others are almost looking forward to bombing somebody....anybody. Much of the Christian church almost nonchalantly says...'God has it all under control'
         It's been reported on a few times over the years in various newspaper and magazine articles....the United States Third Fleet faced two typhoons consecutively in 1944 and 1945. In one of them three destroyers were lost in the storm along with almost 800 lives.....and this without a Zero in sight! God does indeed control the destiny of nations. He controls the waves of the sea, the undulations of the earth, the course of asteroids and even the men who plan wars. He has everything under control....just as He had everything under control in the many sacks of  'Christian' Rome, the Peasant's War during the Reformation and every other period of unmitigated chaos.
         Is there nothing that will wake us up short of calamity? Are we that confident that our nation will continue to just roll along like Ol' Man River. We can watch with great anticipation as the ping pong balls are sucked into a tube on a $100 million lottery but barely ponder let alone meditate upon a 'catastrophic war' that has a 50/50 chance of occurring...using here man's familiarity with the word 'chance.'
         Iran and North Korea are only two very potential catastrophes to Western Civilization that we have deconstructed into a babbling suicidal toga party. There are others. My point in these posts centered on the 38th parallel on the Korean Peninsula is that it is impossible for this North Korean crisis to just go on as it has in the past! Kim Jong-un will wither totally give up his nuclear program or there will be a conflagration....or a catastrophic war as General and Secretary of Defense Mattis described it. One more cooling down and just going on period would be just add insanity to absurdity! Which do you think it will be?
         I write this on Memorial Day, for tens of thousands of our military will eventually fight this our battle, one way or another. It is far too late to avoid the consequences of our rebellion to God, but it is not too late to humble ourselves before Him and seek His steady hand in the approaching whirlwind, of which He has control....not us. May God have mercy upon us so that our pulpits will wake up from their dreamy state to preach not only our King...but our coming King....not only glory but woe....and not only rejoicing but introspection and repentance.

They're Breathing A Lot Easier Now

The following is a month old:

         There's no question about it.....our biggest political strength over the past few decades has been conservative talk radio. It's a simple form of communication where words are transmitted out over radio airwaves. There's no accompanying images to overwhelm or distort the message, so it was potent. The radio was an integral part of our lives in my youth  from listening to music to baseball games, both on cheap transistor radios. As various other communication mediums increased over the years, use of the radio was projected to decrease, but an unexpected thing happened....talk radio which had already existed took on a new form as it gave rise to the individual stating his grievances about very important issues on a large platform.
         This unforeseen development upset the globalist applecart. They were well on their way to taking control over the peoples in just about every nation in the world....certainly in the Western world....but these stubborn 'conservative' Americans put up a fight that would delay a New World Order for decades. Barack Obama put everything in place again and Hillary Clinton would seal the deal but this Tea Party phenomenon took off like a bull out of the chute. The globalists panicked...surely this couldn't be happening! This wild bull in a Communist China shop had the potential to destroy everything the globalists had planned. They didn't have decades anymore to gain influence....and they had already done all that anyway. Education had been all but totally neutralized. The only regular news media left was Fox News. Even professional sports had been taken over. What was left to stop...the Left? Only the Christian church but it was considered to pose no real danger. This though was a miscalculation for the rise of evangelicalism in the 70s was a big part of the reawakening of America to it's Constitution.
         So after Donald Trump was elected the big globalist minds got together in Davos and Brussels and New York and Washington, not to see if anything could be done, for this was their world that was in danger of actually returning to those nasty concepts of liberty and freedom; no there was no if about it, something was going to be done. It was way too late to try to regulate the radio airwaves but there was another way. They essentially owned all the airwaves in one way or another and had either ownership or power over all the advertisers that supported the radio talk shows and conservative television news shows. They would therefore essentially fire all these troublesome people. They would find or invent a reason and then force the advertisers to refuse to be part of such outlandish and dishonorable behavior. So, O'Reilly is gone as are some important network executives who still held to the news profession as being something honorable. Hannity is on the ropes while others are in the crosshairs
         All of this was unnecessary of course because the now President Trump was not as dangerous as they thought he would be. He didn't even bring any constitutional conservatives with him into the Oval Office. To the contrary he brought in a lot of establishment hangers-on and the cherry on top of the ice cream was Jared and Ivanka. Who on our side would have thunk this six months ago?
         So, everything is back on track again for a new World Order. Neither North Korea nor Iran nor a twenty trillion dollar national debt are real problems to the globalists because nothing would give rise to a New World Order quicker than a world war or world economic disaster. The globalists are breathing a lot easier today.
         Of course none of this...not wars nor stock market collapses nor elections are under the control of any globalist, communist or Islamacist. God is in control of the ripples in every creak and stream, every wave that slaps a sandy beach, every storm, every comet, every stock market, every election, every logarithm, every ground ball, and every beach bum who 'blows out his flip flop, steps on a pop top, cuts his heel and has to cruise on back home.'    
          God is therefore also in control of every sermon in every pulpit on every Lord's Day. He has purposely let us go our own way just as He so many times let Israel go their own way. But....but.....should He decide to wake up those pulpits.... and us sitting in the pews in front of those pulpits......there is no force on earth capable of thwarting His will to awaken America....not to make it great again or any such useless plan....but to bring about a reformation and an awakening in America such that all the money in all the globalists bank accounts could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
           This is our only hope....that God should have mercy upon us who work every day to prove that we desire no such mercy. God has warned us in America for so long that it would take sixty-six books to record the warnings.....if you get my drift. Judgment is in store for America and has already started. He has blinded our eyes as to the most basic applications of common sense. We worship technological science which will devour us if God does not intervene first. All of the hedges of protection that He has given America have been uprooted in favor of new sports arenas and shopping malls. Truth is an obsolete term and law is as changeable as a diaper on a newborn baby....a baby fortunate enough not to have been aborted.
         May God still have mercy upon us. May He bind up our wounds and lift the veil from our eyes that we might as a people humble ourselves before Him. That is our only hope folks.

Today Is The Day

The following was first posted in 2014:

Today Is The Day!     

         We have no one to blame but ourselves. We let it happen. Some are more to blame than others but no one is left unscathed. They came in waving their diplomas given to them by the Wizard of Oz and we let them set the coarse for teaching our children. They tapped us on the shoulder getting our attention long enough to tell us that God was dead and we ignored them and went back to watching our sports. They told us that a pre-born child was only a fetus so we let them kill as many as they wanted. They taught in our universities that there is no truth....and then told us that that was the truth, said that there is no good and no bad, no right and no wrong, and that if we agree... that's good, but if we disagree... that's bad, if we follow...that's right and if we don't...that's wrong. They called us intolerant as they swept away piecemeal our identity as a nation through courts whose judges they had strategically placed into position while we naively thought that politics could save us.
          Meanwhile we opened the gates wide as they dragged in the Trojan Horse with the colossal hologram of Barack Obama sitting atop it saying "peace...peace." The barbarians slithered out of the seeming abyss of its belly and began to take apart our Constitution and destroy the American family. They lie as easily as they breath.
         We now sit here and watch as hardly a day goes by without another assault upon sanity, another mockery of law, another battering ram thrust upon our bulwarks....from the inside, another swing of the ax laid to our moorings and another pyre constructed of old books and documents and histories and pews and pulpits, readied to lay upon it our Constitution and be lit by the fires of hell.
We knew more than our parents and they knew more than their parents and they knew more than theirs. The final result of this antithesis of wisdom has produced the 140 character text, the tweet, that tests the limits of our analytical skills.
          O where to go to when we finally see how far we have fallen, when we gag at the stench that permeates our very being, when we sob when we think of the future of our children and clench our fists in anger as we look into a mirror and see nothing....absolutely nothing.
          Well, we're not there yet. We haven't hit bottom, but we will. We aren't gagging because we have been conditioned to savor the fetid stench of communism, and why look into a mirror when one has Facebook!
          Many have penciled in God for late in life, an insurance policy to be purchased upon retirement. How foolish, yet how perfectly inlaid into the urn awaiting our ashes.  Look around and see the house that we have constructed where Jesus Christ is no longer the cornerstone, where His Word is packed away in the basement in a box labelled...'books.' Today is the day to humble ourselves before God, to kneel and weep at the foot of the cross, for there is no guarantee of tomorrow, not for individuals or for nations.

A Second Special Counsel

          A decade ago the word communism was hardly ever heard in the national public discourse. Three or four years ago one would hear the word occasionally as the socialist Barack Obama came to be recognized as the Marxist Barack Obama....and finally the communist inspired and mentored Barack Obama. Over the past few years Rush started using the word more and more along with Mark Levin. Today it's used on a daily basis. This is great progress on informing the American citizenry on what communism is. Now if only our school systems would teach students the full history and tactics of this murderous, carnivorous and lying ideology.
          The more one learns about communism the more one's breath is taken away as one recognizes its methods and strategies that were in play during the Clinton/Obama era. Just one of the many tried and true tactics is to chose the biggest lie that you can think of that furthers your nefarious goals and repeat the lie ad nauseam until the public actually believes it, not because of any evidence for there would be none, but solely because of the constant repetition.
          The Democrats pressured to have a special counsel named to investigate Russian interference in our recent election. Considering the potential earth-shaking repercussions of such an investigation....the recent history of Marxist Alinskyite tactics in American politics....and the legitimate concerns that this investigation remains focused on what it is called to do and does not venture into a political treasure hunt....this president should name a second special counsel....to insure and report on the integrity of the investigation.
     

Our Stricken Ship

         I have a few peripheral fascinations in life and one of them would be the Titanic. I never saw the James Cameron film. Oh I did pay for a ticket and sit in one of the comfortable seats with every intention of watching the movie but I walked out about a half hour into the film. I watched the 1958 black and white version A Night To Remember when I was a child.....and I watched it again for the umpteenth time last night.
         With a little research I came up with this quote from the main female character in the Cameron film..."...there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me...in every way that a person can be saved." It reminded me of a real life quote from the sinking of the Titanic. I've written about this before. John Harper was a British Baptist pastor and passenger on the Titanic. He was headed to America as a guest preacher and possibly to accept a call at a famous American church. He was travelling with his six year old daughter for he was a widower. After he placed his daughter in a lifeboat it is reported that he shouted "women, children, and the unsaved into the lifeboats."
         It is also reported that as he swam up to other people, and as hypothermia was setting is, he challenged them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There was a meeting of survivors in Ontario, Canada a few years after the disaster. One man stood up and testified how John Harper swam up to him twice as he was holding on to debris and said "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." John Harper with no life vest for he had given it to another sank to his death. The man giving this testimony was rescued by a returning lifeboat. He told the gathering this..."I am the last convert of John Harper." Yes, I walked out of Cameron's film and will never view it.
         I believe that the sinking of the Titanic was a message to Britain and to America. Everyone thought that the great ship was unsinkable. Two world wars followed. The space shuttle Challenger had a multi-cultural crew...male and female...scientist, military and civilian...Caucasian, Asian, African-American...Christian, Jewish and Buddhist. Those iconic pictures of the breakup of the Challenger are still hard to look at.
         We don't seem to learn from disasters but we do sometimes learn when we are in them and this world has disasters ahead of it. May the church include preparation in its everyday duties and be encouraged with the same words that Paul gave those on his stricken ship... only as they point to eternal life...."Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship."

Dupes

            A Western Pennsylvania high school made the Fox News Todd Starnes commentary when it reviewed and rejected a student's 'closing exercise' at the high school's graduation ceremonies. The student's prepared remarks were deemed to be unlawful because they constituted the form of a prayer. A national law firm..."dedicated exclusively to protecting religious freedom for all Americans" has since entered the controversy on behalf of the student.
           On the surface it might appear that decisions such as this are simply attempts to follow the law and retain the integrity of the Constitution of the United States. What could possibly be wrong with that.....patriotic Americans concerned that their beloved constitution might be trampled upon? Such is far from the case but one would have to look well below the surface to see what is really involved.
           Madalyn Murray O'Hair was a household name when I was growing up. It was her lawsuit, Murray v. Curlett, that led to the Supreme Court putting a stop to reading the Bible in public schools. O'Hair was born in Pittsburgh, not far from the high school in the news today. A film was released on O'Hair's life and her son William J. Murray, who had become a Christian, was critical of it in that the film didn't mention her..."affiliation with the Communist Party."
           For the communist dialectic to succeed, God had to be expunged from all of public life. The word dialectic itself, as used by Karl Marx and expanded upon by Vladimir Lenin, denoted the transient nature of class struggle. In other words it takes great planning and patience. Consequently America's belief in and dependence upon God must be chipped away at on every side. Over time the backbone of the American public would be broken and Communism would prevail albeit in what might be a form not readily recognizable as that of Lenin's.
           We see the results of this expunging of religious belief in the utter chaos enveloping just about every sector of American life today. Murderers often kill themselves after their heinous acts, for they are not concerned about what happens next. Whole generations can become adrift without purpose and without hope because God has been kept from them. Ethics disappears in government, in corporate America, in the media, in education, and even in science. Truth, as we all know, has become but a buffet where you take only what you want. Political correctness serves the communist objective of inhibiting if not eliminating free speech, and we see this every day from the Progressive blitzkrieg, or 'lightning war', on American values, its way of life, and its self-defense against the many and ravenous wolves dressed in sheep's clothing.
            A graduating high school student is usually 18 years old. One would think that a high school administration would be proud to exhibit the thoughts of a healthy and vibrant mind that it, the school system, had just done its part in educating.... such as in the case with the aforementioned graduating student, for it is a good school system. This should have been a moment to celebrate.
           The political and cultural situation in America has deteriorated so much that it is no longer representative of the Socratic method. It's now dominated by the Alinsky method of scheme, lie and coerce. The family is the primary educator but 'abolition of the family' is a tenet of Communism, while yet another tenet is to suppress individualism. This subversive movement is also subterranean in that even those who serve its purpose are often if not usually unaware of what they are in effect doing. The key word in the confusion over the much ballyhooed phrase...'the separation of church and state' is 'dupes'. These are those who promote that which they may not understand and therefore have no idea that they are indeed.... 'dupes.'
           I'd like to recommend an exceptional book on this overall topic. Paul Kengor is a professor of political science and a best-selling author whose expertise is so often sought out that you have probably read an article written by him at one time or another.

Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century

Breitbart And The Time Machine

The following words that we would do well to consider are those of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

         Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat : "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.

Breitbart And The Time Machine     

       Breitbart, Limbaugh, Levin, Savage, Hannity and a few others, the 'new releases' table at Barnes & Noble, portions of Fox News....that's all we have on the political front but that was enough in the last eight years to take executive powers out of the hands of globalists, Marxists and the political class in America, but a paradigm shift is well under way. Putin posed a valid question to that blond women posing as a journalist with...."Have you all lost your senses over there?" God has blinded our eyes and confused our minds. Of course Vladimir Putin would not understand this. No political strategies will succeed in this dark age of the Morlocks and the Eloi.
        Breitbart is a news source that also has a very important radio program on Sirius/Xm from six to nine in the morning along with weekend programs! This show is what propelled Stephen K. Bannon to where he is today....but he's gone. Bannon had a very specific ideology that dominated Breitbart and it was very effective in its mission, but back to my initial comment that a paradigm shift is underway.....which way is Breitbart to go in a nation that lost all of its senses?  Limbaugh has the Trumpsters and Levin has his distinct crew but Breitbart radio has everyone in the morning who are either sipping their coffee like me or headed to work, and it's Breitbart who has to figure out where it is going.
         There are more radio talk show hosts than you can shake a stick at who have great abilities with a microphone but very few who, to go along with the vocal skills, respond rather than react...and who think through rather than just spew out expected retorts. Fortunately Breitbart has Alex Marlowe who has both vocal skills and analytical skills. The question is what direction he will take Breitbart...a Breitbart that will survive as a news service but the degree to which it continues as a behemoth will be determined by its radio program and the ability of its host (hosts) to generate actual thought in the minds of its listening audience. Will it seek primarily to enlist the 'make America great again' crowd...icluding the pragmatically informed atheist or agnostic.... or will it invite all but agree with the humbled God-fearing Christian that knows why "these disasters had befallen us." It cannot be both!
          Conservatives in America have advanced as far as they can with the political football for they have run head-on into a defensive wall of compromise, chaos and calumny. Insanity rules! But God will determine our fate....not Donald Trump. We ditched our Christian heritage and now find ourselves in a ditch with vermin, snakes and bloodsuckers crawling all over us. How much evidence do we need?
          We are to do what is right. We cannot undo chaos....only God can! We would if we were wise... deal with this subterranean culture, and the Eloi in our midst, in the light of God's revealed truths to us in His Word, but we are too embarrassed to even mention that which our forefathers held on to for dear life. The very horrors that we recoil from on a daily basis are the result of our being ashamed of trusting or even believing in God! We fear ridicule more than God's judgement.

This Old House

The following is from earlier this year:

         "The LORD of Hosts says this..... These people say: The time has not come for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt".... that is how the prophet Haggai related it. The skies withheld their dew they were told because they lived within their paneled houses as the LORD's house lay in ruins. Now what was spoken of here was the temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. I read Haggai a number of times a year and each time I read it my mind goes immediately to the Christian church in America, for I am drawn there by the similarity.
          Here surely is an issue of contention, the state of the church in America today, and I am firmly on one side of that contentious issue. The American Christian church is in shambles. It is Laodicean....neither hot nor cold. You disagree, but it is my contention that it's ministers no longer know how to preach. I am going on 37 years of visiting churches for one reason or another and a chasm as wide as the Nile exists between this church age and previous church ages.
          The majesty of Christ, when even addressed today, is eerily absent of depth. The cross is purposely ignored in many churches and mentioned in others almost as if in passing. To say that Bible study is weak is an understatement, as virtues are a hot topic but truth aka doctrine is too divisive.  Faddish doctrine, bad books and worse teachers are everywhere! The result of all this is that America itself in the middle of collapse by way of an internal coup with ravenous wolves circling to devour the carcass while relatively few in the pulpits discern the reason for this, proclaim effectively or adequately the glories of Christ, nor warn of judgement or herald our coming King.
         The Lord of Hosts then exhorted Zerubbabel and Joshua son of Jehozadak...."Be strong...work for I am with you...don't be afraid....For the LORD of Hosts says this: 'Once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.' I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory." The people then heeded the words of the LORD through Haggai.
         Zerubbabel was used mighty in the restoration of the temple but Haggai was more pointing to a future house of the LORD which was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Twice the prophet points to the last days and this is what I allude to here in this post. God's house once again lay in ruins yet we build and build for ourselves and wonder why our nation is collapsing. We sought answers in politics which was essentially building our own houses, when our attention should have been on our own failures.
          Folks, these are but personal thoughts that I give...as if we were sitting across a table from each other. There are pastors all across America that I would be humbled to even be in their presence and congregations in which it would be a wonderful blessing to worship with, but these are remnants, many though they may be, of what America once was! Should not we at least meditate on these two short chapters in Haggai to see if God may be speaking to us also?

Tempests And Doldrums

The following is my Lord's Day Post and is from December of 2014.

          May God have mercy upon our nation. From small vessels bearing cramped pilgrims we developed into an empire. We surpassed every empire this world has ever seen in not only power and might but in knowledge and scientific skills. More than that even as God used us a conduit for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every corner of the earth. We fought Him all along the way, this is true, but we were a very large piece in His grand design and he would use His rod and His staff on many occasions to both chastise us and to gently but forcefully bring us back.
          As I sit here in my study and pause, my eyes lift to a photograph on canvas on the wall in front of me. The camera is on the teak deck. The thin rails give the impression of a much older vessel. I stare right into the sea as billowing waves heave the ship at about a 40 degree list. Clouds dominate the sky but the sun found an opening as the shutter was clicked. In the foreground, barley visible, are rolling hills where possibly a safe harbor awaits. I look at this photo often and wonder in awe at the power of God's seas and the safe harbor of His grace.
          I've related this story before. Fifteen years ago, sitting in a classroom of mostly younger fellow members of our cohort working for a degree in Higher Education, we were discussing the issues of the day as they related to colleges and universities. I remember standing up for emphasis and warning that a division was coming within America. Two different peoples were emerging, two different methods for thinking, two opposing opinions on what truth is and what it is not. If anyone agreed they did not speak up but unfortunately I was right. Our American Creed is not even a memory. Our heritage is almost spat upon. Our traditions are deemed useless in a world that mocks God.
         As it often seems to happen as I write, the XM radio plays something that relates to the topic at hand and in this instance it's classical music and Edward Elgar's Coronation March written for the coronation of Great Britain's King George V in 1911. There is no pomp and circumstance in this piece. The music seems to roll along with the hills and the ship in my photograph. 1911! A new century was underway, a century that would hurl England into two World Wars within three decades. Bombed.....but never into submission......no, it would lose in other ways, even as we are losing now.
         Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, had warned them but they would not listen. Their pulpits were not vigilant and the gospel was being modernized. Today, over a century later, England is surrendering. Surrendering to confusion. Awash in chaos, their heritage trampled underfoot by foreigners who take advantage of a malnourished liberal tradition; they fight back but there is no Churchill to rally them, no Thatcher to prod them and face down the enemy's threats and lies, and although many faithful preachers-no Spurgeon...Ryle...or Martyn Lloyd-Jones to call down fire from on high on their (our) arrogance!
         Some see the world today as simply a new paradigm, that the world will go on. Others see it as progress but all the evidence, if allowed to be submitted, shows a crumbling Western Civilization.... puzzle pieces added almost every day where a picture of our future is beginning to appear. It's one of a dystopian society ruled by Herbert Spencer's 'survival of the fittest' and birthed by Charles Darwin's On The Origin Of Species. In the background, behind the robotic movements and hollow faces of the people, above the gay-colored storefronts that have absolutely nothing to sell that can enliven that people or that can inform, and movie theaters with films that preach the chimera of a nation adapting without God, is an onrushing sandstorm obliterating all vision and discernment....a tsunami that sucks in the surf before it exposing a soft underbelly of a nation that once acknowledged, reverenced and relied upon its benefactor and at least tried to navigate by His written Word.
         Twelve hours from now men and women will fill the pulpits of America. Well-exercised healthy specimens, pastors of the First Church of the Fit and Buff, tolerant of everything except that written Word; they will smile and preach peace oblivious to two previous millennia of pulpits that extolled the glories of Christ, warned of hellfire and offered salvation bought on a bloody cross.
         Not all pulpits have decayed. Many of God's ministers shed tears throughout the week and reach out as if to grab the hem of the cloak of their Saviour seeking power from on high to awaken those given into their charge. Seeking a revival, even a reformation and seeking mercy, their work is not in vain. Christians in America are as strong and faithful as they ever were but far, far fewer in percentages. Almost isolated, often ridiculed, sometimes persecuted, they sense that the King of Kings is mounted, that His mighty angels are silent, awaiting the voice of thunder that beckons them forward. May God have mercy upon America. May He use us one last time, according to His will, for His purposes....and for His glory alone!

The Intolerance Of Bernie Sanders

The following was first posted ten days ago:

         Folks, I would ask you to prepare yourself for what you are about to read for it may be a watershed moment in the government of the United States of America. It has Kristallnacht written all over it albeit in its germination stage here in America. You have no excuse now....it is time to study the Word of God as you have never before. Pastors, you have no excuse.....it is time to preach the Person and the work of Jesus Christ every Lord's Day. There is no way you can explain this away.
         The following can be read in article form right now as I type on Fox News under the heading..."Bernie Sanders attacks Trump nominee for following teachings of Christ." I'll let the article speak for itself but will point out a few things first. Senator Bernie Sanders can come out today and say the things you will read because too many professing Christians agree with him!
          I've written in a few posts over the years that it is my belief that the extreme opposition to anything or anyone related to conservatism originates in an extreme aversion to God. That aversion, which is too often a mild term for what it is, extends only to the Christian faith and only the Christian faith of today that is still biblical. Islam and liberal Christianity are no problem because the former holds no sway over the Western mind and the latter no longer has within it the power of conviction. Should a valedictorian want to mention the name of Jesus Christ and the shield goes up.
         Not only is this attack on God in the public square not constitutional, it is as unconstitutional as it can possibly be. Our Founding Fathers would pound the table, stomp their feet and shout that the whole town could here should God and the Bible be abused as it is today.
         This is going to get worse should God not intervene and humble us in our rebellion. I am no fan of Donald Trump but the attacks on him are that of a bloodthirsty mob being held back. This is because a President Trump 'represents' the Christian faction in America....they don't see him....they see us! These people are not lying, for they are well past the capacity to lie, Their loathing of the Bible as the very word of God has marred their God-given cognitive capacities to even discriminate between lying and what they are doing.

        The following is from confirmation hearings on the Russell Vought nomination for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. This outrageous example of the horror of political correctness provides not merely an opportunity for the church to boldly say...yes, there is salvation in none other than Jesus Christ....but it is a rebuke in the form of a rude awakening that we have failed to proclaim the gospel while we had the liberties to do so and that and we are paying the price for not standing for that truth.
      

Sen. Sanders: "'Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.' Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?"
Mr. Vought: "Absolutely not, Senator. I'm a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith...
Sanders: "...Forgive me, we just don't have a lot of time. Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?"
Vought: "Again, Senator, I'm a Christian, and I wrote that piece in accordance with the statement of faith at Wheaton College..."
Sanders: "I understand that. I don't know how many Muslims there are in America. Maybe a couple million. Are you suggesting that these people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?"
Vought: "Senator, I'm a Christian..."
Sanders [shouting]: "I understand you are a Christian, but this country [is] made of people who are not just -- I understand that Christianity is the majority religion, but there are other people of different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?"
Vought: "Thank you for probing on that question. As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that's how I should treat all individuals..."
Sanders: "...Do you think that's respectful of other religions?... I would simply say, Mr. Chairman that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about."


Press On

        France recently elected a man who had he lost his election could have been a star on a reality based television series in America. Canada did little better in their election... learning absolutely nothing from our dalliances in the United States with leaders who looked good and talked a good game but had nothing good to offer and plenty of bad. South Korea just elected...with 41% of their vote.... a human rights activist who with their nation on the precipice of all precipices is more concerned with environmental issues of a war than a madman with nuclear weapons. And what else is new...the UK is split down the middle like just every other country in the West...which means that half of its people are useless in protecting their own land.
         Six months ago America's future looked brighter. There was a movement of common sense that had built up to a crescendo of rallying cries  It looked as if we had turned a corner but all of a sudden the bottom dropped out. Britain looked as if it were going to follow our lead but the bottom dropped out there also.  A nephew of mine is serving in the military overseas and before he left I told him to let me know if he needs some books to read. Happily he did request some books....on leadership. I had to do some thinking on this and asked the opinion of others who had been in leadership positions. I bundled up some books and sent them off.
          What is happening in the West....the complete breakdown of leadership....kept me thinking about this subject. So I'll offer my own opinion on what leadership is despite the fact that I have never, in 67 years, been in such a position, for I've always been under leaders, bosses, and pastors. So what might my qualifications be you ask? Well, to paraphrase the very funny and innovative Farmers Insurance commercials...."I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two.'
          I have to amend this declaration a little bit. God gave me a son, and there can be no greater example of leadership than a father and his son during his formative years. Nothing in his life mattered more to me than the knowledge he would come by of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ....not his health....not his education.....and certainly not his entertainments.....although all three of these were looked after with great care. So using this as an example, leadership is primarily taking full responsibility for those that you lead. A father's primary responsibility is that his children know Jesus Christ. Everything else comes after that.
          In order for this to happen a father has to know have knowledge of the Christian faith.....therefore he has to study and learn. This comes before taking the child fishing or playing ball with him. It comes before teaching him to be a gentleman. It comes before telling him to brush his teeth or do his homework.
          There will be many enemies trying to direct him away from Jesus Christ. These enemies have to be identified and if need be he has to be constantly reminded of them. They will often be the most attractive of people around him. They may pretend to followers of Jesus Christ themselves. They are smart, more accurately their leader is smart, that would be Satan himself. They will have powerful weapons. For example...Facebook is a weapon. They will attack our weaknesses....and unfortunately they know our weaknesses. They may attack in wave after wave after wave.....and they will never disappear until the King of Kings returns to cast them into the lake of fire.
          There will be casualties....there will be wounded.....there will be defeats.....there will be POWs! The father keeps the King in the mind of his child through all of this. Press On! The secular leader has to address this in a different way. Those under his (her) charge have done their best. There is no more that can be asked.
          There may be unwise wars....there may be greedy corporations....leaders have no control over this but leaders do have control over their own actions. The war may be unwise but the army itself is honorable. The corporation may be greedy but the job is honorable. The leader therefore may have to sacrifice himself before he sacrifices his principles. Do not take on a position of leadership unless you are willing to give it up if you are ordered to do what is wrong....not what might be unwise....but ethically and morally wrong.
         The leader must take pains to recognize the strengths and weaknesses in those under his charge.....and encourage to the fullest to get the best out those under his (her) responsibility....this not only to benefit the individual but that government or organization which he himself (herself) serves.
         God makes leaders and he makes those who serve. If the cause is just...seek to lead. If the cause is not just....seek to lead by serving justly. And in either capacity seek this....that He... our Lord and our Savior.... will say to you....on that day....'Well done, good and faithful servant.'
       

The Victory Is Ours

        I know now what it takes to be an Olympic marathoner. When I watch one of these Kenyans running and winning one of our American marathons I'm right with them...running right along with them. I understand the pain. I've trained with them in long daily runs in the snow, wind, rain and summer heat. I've shared their agony. I'm no longer a fan...I'm a fellow runner!
        My actual running days are over because of my knees and the one marathon I ran I came in second... to the last... and had EMTs running up to me to see if I needed assistance. No, I'm not one with these Kenyans on the streets, but I'm one with them in their mind. I know what they had to do to get where they are. It takes perseverance and perseverance takes dedication. You have to press on. That means that come pain or discouragement or criticisms or ridicule that you run right through it.
        The Apostle Paul did not grasp for some motivational analogy when he said that the runner competes to win. He wasn't short on inspiration that day and just filled in a few lines with good advice. He probably saw athletes train and collapse. He may have even heard the tale that after the Athenians had defeated the Persians on the Marathon battlefield that a runner ran the 26 miles to Athens. He ran until his heart gave out...proclaimed victory and then collapsed and died.
         I had heard about this King named Jesus.....as a story told around a campfire. I would listen to the stories with wide eyes....then I would yawn and crawl into my sleeping bag and go to sleep. What changed? It was good...God was happy with me....this thing called eternal life was mine....I was born again. What changed?
         It was those words in that book that did it. I spent too much time in it. I read one too many Old Testament prophets....one too many biographies of those gone on before....and those pastors......where did they come from all of a sudden? It was no longer just a campfire story. I saw the glory of this king...not with my eyes but in the words of that book. I had the riot act read to me. This really was a war and I saw bodies literally all around me. It was time to grow up. I couldn't hear the words to stop anymore for the sound of the trumpet blasts.
         And His voice...it rang so sweet and yet powerful in my ears. It was a beautiful sound. It drowned out the cacophony of this Vanity Fair that we live in. And those around me...reading that same book...how wonderful to have company....not only company but encouragement and example.
         It seems as if every hour of the day someone says to slow down....or someone calls out to stop and learn this new game.....or something points out my unworthiness to be in this race. I feel the pain in my side as I run. My feet are blistered over at times. My body wants to stop and rest...even to quit....but I know that if I do that then I won't hear that voice anymore.
         I must look weary at times...maybe even awkward....or convulsed. Surely they think that I'll collapse...but one foot continues to fall after the other and that voice continues to beckon. I can see others running next to me.....they encourage and grab my arms if I stumble. I try to encourage them when they are in distress. Someone hands me cool water. Someone else tells me to watch this rock. I tell others to avoid that hole. I can see the finish line and shout....."life...life...eternal life!" Paul finished his race and I'll finish mine....I may come in last but I'll finish and win a crown....for the King has told me this in that book!