Read.....And Maybe Weep

I bring the following post back a couple of times a year:      

           The following proclamation, taken from abrahamlincolnonline.org, was written by our Senate in 1863, and placed on the desk of President Lincoln to sign. I first posted it in July of 2015.
Ted Cruz and maybe three or four other Senators might be able to pen such a proclamation today but it would evoke hoots and howls of derision if placed on our president's desk and the media would unmercifully castigate its authors.
           Each and every thought in this proclamation may have you ask...who were these people? The answer is that they were Americans....we are no longer America! Maybe you read the news bulletin of a few weeks ago where we were informed that 53 of 76 highly ranked colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, do not even require history majors to study American history....and we often wonder why Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can get away with the things that they do!
           Read every sentence.....please.....the game doesn't start for another ten minutes....and The Bachelorette has probably been preempted by news on the latest terror attack. Read and maybe weep as I do, for this was America. We are now a nation of prodigals, mesmerized by the image on our Facebook page, our intellects hamstrung by Groupthink, and our individualism purposely eroded by a  century of 'Progressive' education. May God have mercy on this nation that historically must rank no higher than the first quartile in its ability to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and discern God's warnings in His Word and the signs of the times, yet considers its church services rather spiffy and its discernment fine and dandy in God's eyes.
       

Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day

Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863 Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed. 

By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh. By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Eureka!

I have to explain this one a little. The following two paragraphs are from a July 2015 preface to a February 2014 post, and combined they are today's Lord''s Day post:

            In a way I like writing personal posts like this but if there wasn't a message in it, then the entire blog of almost seven years (now three months shy of nine years) would be just a grand waste of time. The word eureka is associated with the discovery of gold in both California and Australia. The message here in this post is that there are gold nuggets....each usually about 6" by 9" and weighing a little over a pound each depending on the number of their pages, that literally litter the American landscape in bookstores and libraries. They are worth far more than if they were actual gold and will change your life if you will let them. Actually it's the Holy Spirit who does that but he employs words written by mere men and women. Unfortunately you may have to pan as tirelessly as those miners from the California Gold Rush to find them, but the nuggets are indeed there. I'll give you a few recommendations at the end of today's post to get you started.
           The following is from February of 2014 and although it doesn't mention books, it was books that God first used to open my eyes. That's why we had a bookstore at one time and that's why the short novella that I wrote, which you can access at the link on this page, revolves around a Christian bookstore.

It Would Not Make Sense.....       

          I cannot remember what it feels like not to know Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Lord and my King. Oh I remember what it is like to trample underfoot the grace that He bestowed upon me, sinner that I am, for I would only have to go back hours if not minutes for that, but I cannot remember how I 'thought' prior to 1982. I know what wasn't in my mind but cannot remember what was there. I can recall my fourth birthday party where my older cousin Buzzy hid behind a door to scare me. I remember putting a full carton of my lunch milk into the milk crate, spilling it all over the kindergarten floor at North Hill Elementary School, and then not owning up to it as Mrs. Martin had us circle the crate until until the guilty party fessed up. It's not for lack of memory powers, it's for lack of something else.
         I remember what it was like to be....religious. I remember sitting in the pew before grade school, holding my daily missal in my hands almost entranced by the Latin words coming from the altar. I remember trying to converse with God on long walks in the rain while in my teens. I remember attending Mass in Vietnam on those Sunday mornings when I didn't have a hangover. I remember walking over to St. Paul's Cathedral for evening Mass after finishing work at Hillman Library at Pitt. I just cannot remember the name of Jesus as anything more than a distant personage who must surely be revered as someone very important but for reasons as distant in understanding as the heavens themselves where Jesus lived.
         Someone won over $400 million dollars in the Powerball yesterday but that experience cannot possibly rival receiving the grace poured out from the cross of Calvary. I have a Bible hanging on the side of my locker at work all of the time. I doubt that it is picked up very often. Here in that Bible is something that should make the $400 million jackpot appear as a worn penny on the street in value but it goes unrecognized. Bibles are everywhere in America but can't even compete with an iPhone in perceived value.
          Arminianism is the most prevalent theology in evangelicalism today. In this doctrine man responds positively to the Gospel and is born again. But this is not what Scripture describes. In the Gospel according to Jesus Christ a dead person (spiritually dead) is made alive!!! He then responds to the Gospel that he truly hears for the first time. For ten years I thought that I made a decision and God responded by pouring His grace out upon me... that I wasn't as dumb as I look! Then I saw what really happened, that for some reason known only to God, he said..."You....the lowest of the low....believe, repent, be baptized and follow Me!" It was He that opened my eyes, that made me see my previous 32 years. I saw the filth and the rebellion, the pride, the hate, the ignorance and the arrogance.....and then I saw a King before me... the King of Kings! My heart stopped beating and a new heart began to beat. My lungs collapsed. I could draw in no air for the majesty I was in the presence of. I yelled as John Bunyan's pilgrim..."Life, life, eternal life!"
         If I sit and meditate and try as hard as I can to remember what it what like before God opened my eyes...I start to tremble. Something wafts through my nostrils...an odious smell...and then it disappears. I perceive that God will not let me return any further then the address where I see the outside of the building but cannot go in. I never want to go into that building but I also never want to forget it for therein is my only remembrance of what life was like without Christ and what I was rescued from, and every time I see it I yell once again...."Life, life, eternal life!'. My desire is that you  hear what I heard....the words "You.....the lowest of the low.....believe, repent, be baptized and follow Me," for it makes no sense that God would have had mercy on me but that I could tell you of it!

Eureka!
Putting Amazing Back Into Grace by Michael Horton
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
The Holiness Of God by R. C. Sproul
Scripture Alone by R. C. Sproul

These will help also...
24 hour Internet radio.....refnet.fm
Cumberland Valley Bible Book Store......cvbbs.com

Concerns Over Jordan

         Lost in the brilliance of important matters of life such as President Trump's latest administrative change are the ominous happenings in the constitutional monarchy of Jordan. Israel has relied on Jordan to at least be a buffer with much of radical Islam and to give them somewhat of a rest on one of their borders, but there are stirrings in Jordan that jeopardize this buffer and this rest.
         There was an incident...incidents really....do they really have to be described....incidents are what anarchists and revolutionaries and communists and radical Muslims use to instigate wars.....so there were a couple of incidents that have stoked fires of anti-Israeli sentiment in Jordan within the last few days and even elicited comments from Jordan's King Abdullah II that should be of concern.
         Jordan has a parliament and a quarter of that parliament voted to rescind the peace agreement with Israel and also demanded that their ambassador to Israel be recalled.
         Folks, everything is particularly ominous in the Middle East right now.....more so than it usually is. Jordan has been seen as synonymous with stability. This potential shift is where all the 'winning winning winning' verbiage of President Trump is counter-productive. This is where 'fake news' must take a back seat to issues boiling over in the pot right now that have the potential to change the entire lives of every American.
         I'll give but one example. A military draft and is in place and most likely will be reinstituted should both the Middle East and the Far East erupt. Here is where the good men of Princeton University who have recently made news with concerns about men showing signs of too much.....masculinity....may have to reassess their position a little bit. I doubt if their drill sergeants will have read their thoughts. As a matter of fact I wouldn't mention those thoughts to them. Uh...these men do know that there are no more student deferments don't they?

....Advise And Consort....

         I have to admit that it was truly astonishing. In my forty-some...almost fifty years of following politics I had never seen anything quite like it. I'm talking about the 'Skinny Bill' voted on in the Senate very early this morning. After hours of debate the time to vote had come. Each Senator's name was called and he or she walked to the front and either voted yes or no.
         Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stood at the front with his arms folded. Senator Schumer sat close by. As I watch the evening unfold there was obvious tension around John McCain. At one point earlier in the evening he walked up to Schumer, and even from a distance you could tell that his conversation was heated.
         The Senate chamber was quiet. Most everyone was standing. McCain entered from the right of the camera position on the Republican side of the aisle. He walked up to the front about five or six feet from Mitch McConnell and held his arm out with thumb down. Everyone was obviously stunned. His lone vote defeated the bill. After a stunned two or three seconds some of the Democrats hesitatingly start to clap or gasp. Schumer angrily turned to them and waved off any response and they obediently cowered. McCain walked off the floor and up the aisle. McConnell never moved a muscle. He just kept looking down for a few seconds and then slowly walked away.
          John McCain is a Shakespearean tragic figure....but then as I watched this supposedly august assembly I thought many to be tragic figures and much worse. Watching these type of votes certainly does not instill confidence in our government. The bill was a mess...the last six months were a mess....the Democrats....Schumer excluded.....are one large group of spoiled children without a clue as to what America or freedom or liberty is all about....Schumer is the arrogant bully who commandeered the leadership of these piddling pretenders of prestige and prominence....and the Republicans...save for a few strong honest men.... are merely their handmaidens.
         If America were to undergo a spiritual awakening...a genuine Christian reformation....95 of these Senators would not even get out of their primary battle. We put them there and we are paying the price. These men and women can have their fame....for it is nothing but for a mess of pottage that they gave away any honest desire they may once have had to uphold our constitution.         

FAKE HOPE

         Public schooling throughout America, from kindergarten to college, has become No Go (d) Zones...or No God Zones. This is pure communism in its later stages as to countries that communism is targeting. America today is in the middle stages of communism itself. Consequently the majority of our youth today have no answers to the hard questions that life throws at them....and this is all by design! They have been insulated and cloistered as to the realities around them with no real hope beyond that which they have available to them each and every new day. If they are in high school and have grades and access to tuition...or if they have acquired a job... then they have hope...but it will prove to be fleeting and ephemeral. They are in need of Jesus Christ!
         Television and film tell them who they need to be...or at least who is cool even if they are not successful...therefore they can enter this virtual world where hope itself is virtual. Facebook makes available to them an alternative to hope.....fake hope....but when fake hope is shown to be what it is... despair fills the void. Thus we have suicides and drug deaths and horror news stories and grave statistics and everyone with a electronic device in front of their face.....and very little if any discernment whatsoever as to casting very important votes....this even though politicians condescend to them as an adult would a small child....'Oh what a big boy you are!'
         The bottom line is this...we are trying to reach intellectually those who do not have the discernment at this time to absorb the information. I know all about this for I once could have been a poster boy for liberal ideals run amok. I needed the gospel of Jesus Christ! Napoleon once said that..."religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Solzhenitsyn wrote..."... 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."
         Our only hope in America....our only hope....is in Jesus Christ. Folks, pull up any one of the many recent surveys done on religious belief in America. We are an eclectic mess. The same person might clam to be a Christian and not even believe in hell. There is a cost to discipleship but we have elected and thus called leaders to our pulpits who keep those costs at a bare minimum....thus obscuring the essence of the gospel. Pay attention to your pulpit this Lord's Day. If your minister of the gospel shows no concern beyond a 'pray for our leaders' then he is in need of direct and immediate intercessory prayer... morning, afternoon and evening.....for the benefit of the congregation.... that he might awaken and plead mercies for what has become of us as a nation, as a church, and as a people.       

DISPATCHES

          I'm reading a book right now about the Russian revolution and the year 1917 in Petrograd. Central to what I've read so far are the dispatches from foreign journalists back to their newspapers and magazines in their home countries. The word 'dispatches' sat very well with me when I read it as that's what I look upon many of these posts as....dispatches.....eye witness accounts so to speak....sent to others who because of time and circumstances view these things from afar. I've sent these posts back week after week and month after month and year after year to everyday Americans, detailing the unravelling conditions in our government and our society in general. The Russian autocracy, clad in their furs, feasting and travelling in their elegant automobiles and troikas, enjoyed their ballet and theater right up to the moment that their country collapsed.

          The following comments on Noah Webster are from late last year while the post after it is from January of 2013.

"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate-look to his character."

"If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted."

         The two celebrities were bantering back and forth on television about language and one remarked that he heard it said that Noah Webster's last words were....."I am going to die......or I am about to die.......either is correct." I researched a bit Noah Webster's death and his actual words to a friend while death neared were..."I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day."
         The above quotations on electing principled men are obviously those of Noah Webster. We would have been far better off if we knew of his advice and heeded his words in the primaries. My take was that Donald Trump had entered the primaries essentially to build up the Trump brand. He probably hoped that he could be a spoiler but never expected his meteoric rise, nomination and generally election victory. He understood the issues that propelled him to the White House enough to build a campaign on them....but he did not understand the people who put him there....who live and breath the issues.
         The problem was that conservatives didn't actually.... know whom they believed.....Donald Trump. We do now.....many of us. Finding ourselves in this predicament in these supremely dangerous times it would behoove us to concentrate on Noah Webster's words as death approached.....which were based on the Apostle's Paul's words....."...I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."...

America Unravelling....January 2013:

         Charles Spurgeon wrote these words over a century ago, The yoke of affliction, disappointment, and excessive labor is by no means to be sought; but when the Lord lays it upon us in our youth it frequently develops a character which glorifies God and blesses the church. Come, my soul, bow thy neck; take up thy cross. It was good for thee when young, it will not harm thee now. 
         America is heading at breakneck speed in acquiring such a yoke. We are but a shell of what we were. Where the aroma of our freedom and liberty once wafted throughout the world it is now the stench of our culture that permeates much of the globe. There should be no surprise here for when a civilization becomes so prosperous that its economy is totally dependent on what its malls can sell, its influence for good becomes depleted in proportion to the disgust that is generated. We have become a seller to the world of that which makes it vomit. Given time, all these nations would have generated their own pollution on their own, we just accelerated the situation. It's the nature of man without God. 
         They don't hate us because we are good, they hate us, many of them, because we once gave the appearance of being good and have since, in their eyes, let them down. Where did it begin? Hugh Hefner is as good a guess as any but what difference does it make? Our television screens rage against God! Our streets are violent and we as a people have become desensitized to it. Our pulpits preach peace when there is no peace; thinking they are building faith in God, they are concealing His righteous anger. Gone almost, is the statesman, replaced by the pure politician. Government runs our lives, obsessed and drunken with power. I see no way that God will have mercy upon us as we exist today without a radical reformation. It would be ludicrous as evidenced from many examples in Scripture, that God would give us, as a nation, more time to sell our wares while profaning His name, refusing to let our children come to Him (those that we do not abort,) destroying His creation of the family and demanding that we are masters of our own fate. 
         It doesn't matter what I, or anyone so inclined as I, might say. For they are just words. God has blinded us to a world hastening to destruction. We read the news as much as to say "Things are dangerous....over there!" We have become insulated by our entertainments. Our motto has become Red Solo Cup...Let's Have A Party. We cannot see a day past the Super Bowl and when that is over everything will be put on hold until the end of March Madness, and so on. We are to be pitied, but pitied only by those who do not know the majesty of God and His omnipotent power, for His mercy is as abundant as His judgments are strict, but only in response to repentance. 
         There may very well be a yoke of affliction coming upon us for we have made it abundantly clear that only such a yoke can awaken us and even then, will our response be one of rending our garments and seeking God's mercy, to grow once again as a nation and church, or will we then blame God and those who did warn us? Do we really want to hear peace and safety when we are at the edge of the abyss? The same Scripture that recorded God's judgments upon nations recorded his mercies. It would behoove all of us to look into that Word to be informed of our creator, our benefactor, our sustainer up until now, our shepherd and the ruler of all the nations.

Emmanuel (God With Us) Macron

         It was a strange article but then Newt Gingrich has done some strange things over the years. I stepped up to the voting machine on November 6th, 2012 and typed in the name Newt Gingrich. I was going to leave my vote for president blank but at the last minute decided to cast a write-in for Newt.....I should have typed in Jim DeMint.
         The Opinion article on Fox right now is on Emmanuel (God with us) Macron.....'Why France's Macron Is A President Worth Watching.'  The last sentence in Newt's article is..."Without a doubt, Macron is a president worth watching." I would be a lot less concerned if that sentence read...."Without a doubt, Macron is a president worth watching out for."
          A thought just flashed through my mind.....I love beach boardwalks and their t-shirt and hermit crab stores....I walk in in need of foot protection for the hot sand.....oh here we go....Newt Gingrich flip-flops....that's the ticket!
          Emmanuel (God with us) Macron as the president of France is not good news. I watched the speech that 'God with us' gave to the French legislature and thoughts of Napoleon came to mind. I looked at the faces in the legislature and was surprised not to see any alarm. Here is a man who actually said..."I will govern like a Roman God." It's reported that he wants to have a "Jupiterian' presidency.
          This from Newt in his article...."In an incredibly short time, and with little initial backing from the political establishment (really Newt...you think anti-establishment is the best description....I thought that Marine Le Pen was the anti-establishment candidate?) President Emmanuel Macron has sparked a legitimate political revolution and changed the course of his entire country." Newt...you do know that one can be floating on a raft headed for the Horseshoe Falls and change course to go over the American Falls do you not?
          Newt then likens Emmanuel (God with us) Macron to Donald Trump. I see a little bit of similarity Newt but I'm sure that's not what you mean. Here is the last paragraph in Newt's article...."This relationship could be very important, with the underlying reason being very simple: If Macron can build a coalition that can essentially reset the board of French politics in a matter of 14 months, consider what he he might be able to accomplish in terms of influencing Europe as a whole."
         Newt....Do your ears hear what your mouth is saying?

My take on this folks is that the White House may have sought out Newt to puff Emmanuel Macron a little bit and see how conservatives react...if they react.

Promises Kept?      

         It wasn't what I really wanted to do.....watch President Trump's latest rally.....but I thought that I had to.....particularly since there might have been a dozen or so folks that I know either in the arena or outside watching on the big screen. Yes this was just as big as a Pittsburgh Penguin playoff game.....only in a Penguin playoff game you can believe the voice on the screen. This was President Trump's third rally since he he became president....fourth if you include the Boy Scout Jamboree.
         He gave essentially the same speech that he gave during the entire campaign but no one cared because they had essentially come for reassurance that they did not make a mistake last November. These are good people folks who originally cared so much for their country that they rallied en masse for a man whom they perceived to be their champion, but over time, spectacle won out over truth.
         The ubiquitous cell phone camera raised and pointing to the podium throughout these arenas demonstrates very clearly that it is the image that counts and not the words emanating from the image....for they are the same words....the same promises he has spoken from the beginning.
         Last night in Youngstown, Ohio, President Trump at one point shouted out.... "Don't even think about it...we will build the wall!" Cheers followed as everyone stood up again for the umpteenth time and raised their professionally made placards distributed to them. As to this particular comment the placard read...."BUILD THE WALL." They can flip the sign around later when appropriate to the 'MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN' side.
         These rallies cannot go one for much longer. This arena yesterday held 7,000 people and the Trump White House most likely will be able to fill the arenas in the immediate future... but the concept of listening to the same campaign slogans over and over is going to get old for everyone else.
         The Republican establishment elites have successfully regained 80% to 90% of the ground that they lost in the election. Jeff Sessions was turning out to be too hot a topic. Today the President announced that the military will not allow transgenders in the military. The narrative has been temporarily changed....mission accomplished. This type of 'victory' and the timing of it's release....whether intentional or not.....tends to undercut any criticisms against President Trump on the many backslidings on other major issues. When you make 100 promises, of which a handful were absolutely essential to winning the election, you can then keep and announce scores of promises kept on lesser issues....and thereby take the heat off of the more major issues....but eventually the people will catch on.
         We are in the midst of incessant probing of possible collusion with Russia by Donald Trump in the election that put him in office. This issue may eventually force President Trump's resignation or even impeachment. On the other hand, the tables may be flipped over and we will find....quite frankly what we already know....that the modern day Schumer/Clinton/Obama Democrat Party is and has been guilty beyond any definition of corruption.....but this and all the above mentioned 'major issues' such as Obamacare repeal and the Wall will pale in comparison to the dangers from what may lie just ahead for America and the world. Donald Trump will most likely be our president during these trying times and travails.
         This is why he has to be challenged as he abandons his conservative base....particularly in the restoration of establishment elite power. Surely President Trump is guilty of collusion here! One would think that this lack of character would naturally transfer over to his role of commander and chief of our military. Thus this whole mess isn't as simple as waiting for the 2018 elections....it is rather directly related as to whether or not we can get to the 2018 elections.
         We have....all of us....forgotten God in America. Instead of long ago pleading in humility for God's mercy and trusting in Him....we sought out our own champion. After ten of the twelve 'spies' came back to Moses (Numbers 13) and reported that the enemy was too strong to defeat....and this after all the power that God had shown to the people....God brought judgment upon the ten spies and ordered the people to go back into the wilderness.....but the people had a better idea.....they rethought the issue.....they admitted that were wrong....they would indeed go into Canaan in the power of the LORD. Only the LORD had already judged them....Moses then warned them....they went out on their own anyway....and they were routed. This is essentially what we are doing..... and in an attempt to assuage our guilt in not first seeking God's will.....rather than praying that Donald Trump humble himself before Almighty God.....we pray that God would anoint the champion that we already anointed. We refused to rely on God and now that we have our champion we will attempt to go forward in God's name.
     
'Be Prepared"

         Conservatives are being torn apart. President Trump is tearing us apart by asking...no demanding of all of us that we abandon our principles and just follow him and believe him no matter what the outward appearances might be or how outrageous that of which we are witnessing.
         Had he just showed up at the Boy Scout Jamboree and encouraged them in their civic and patriotic duties it would have been fine. These are just kids who love being Boy Scouts and could have had the added excitement of actually seeing in person the President of the United States. Surely their parents hold to many different political opinions. To those parents this time that should have been one of celebrating their son's week of fun and excitement was probably turned into a nightmare.
         Many if not most of those parents are most likely conservative in their beliefs. If my son was of age, and a younger Boy Scout, and present at the Jamboree, and I were there also, I would have been praying for God to protect him from falling for this purely political miasma. What could possibly make these Boy Scouts shout in unison....."We love Trump...we love Trump...we love Trump!"? Once again if I were there I would have taken my son out at that point....depending on his age!
         Folks, I say this not because it was President Trump they were shouting out to....I would feel the same way if it were a rock star or even a Christian minister! I can't remember the year but it was at Pittsburgh's Civic Arena and I was there as a Leon Russell fan. In the middle of the concert the lights in the arena went out. Quite a bit of time passed and Leon felt that he should take the microphone to pacify the crowd. Exactly what he said in his talk I do not remember but I do remember this...at one point he had us....all of us....shouting out...."Thank you Jesus...Thank You Jesus...Thank You Jesus." Such is the sway that celebrities might hold over those who sometimes even worship them.

        Two years ago, we in the conservative movement were anything but followers. We might have been accused of it because we listened to conservative radio so much but on the whole we readers and thinkers. Common sense was our guide....not a man with a sign instructing us to...'applaud,' but that's what we are turning into.....and that is where the dividing line will be in this split in conservatism. On one side will be those of us who do our own thinking and make up our own minds. On the other side will be those who simply acquiesce to the carefully crafted stimuli and join in the rallying state of mind.

Charlie Gard

         Abortion is legal in many if not most circumstances in England, Wales and Scotland. Hundreds of thousands of babies are aborted every few years, but this is not a numbers thing. Every time I scan the news and see a picture of that beautiful child Charlie Gard, the pit of my stomach just....it just sinks or something. His parents announced today that they are giving up the fight with the British government. Too much time has passed with all the court battles to help the child.

         Sarah Palin was right....you betcha she was right....these are death panels. Charlie didn't make the grade. Today is the anniversary of the disaster of the capsizing of the SS Eastland in 1915 where over 800 people died in the Chicago river harbor as the ship was top heavy as it was being loaded and turned on its side.....844 people were lost and most of us in America today are not even aware of it. I mentioned in a previous post how I thought that the Challenger disaster in January of 1986 was a sign to America....we were being judged by God because of what we had become....and folks these were the Reagan years! The various ethnicities and religions, and genders of the crew....the tentacled plume in the sky forever etched in our mind.....these things have meaning......yet this was only seven people.

         Charlie Gard is only one child but because of the impact of his image in the news for weeks and the circumstances where the government is just going to let the child die without even letting his parents try to help him....because of this....it is....in my opinion....a very visual piece of evidence that the United Kingdom has mocked God.....and of course we know that God will not be mocked.

         In the last few days here in America we have read and watched (video) news stories were teens laughed and cursed as a man drowned in front of them...and another where a young woman livestreamed on Instagram (whatever that is) before, during and after an automobile crash where a 14 year old girl was killed. These type of stories dumbfound us every few days....unfortunately we are only dumbfounded temporarily! What have we become?

          The big big news this weekend of course was the marvelous and thrilling finish to the British Open....or so I hear. Chaos and collapse and capsizing are everywhere but all we have to do is point the remote and change the channel. May God have mercy upon us. (NOTE: Charlie Gard died today July 28th, 2017) 

Let Right Be Done

         The play was based on an incident that took place in Edwardian England 1910 at the Royal Naval College, Osborne. A five-shilling postal order was stolen. Fourteen year old cadet George Archer-Shee was charged with the theft, summarily expelled, and thus his family humiliated. His father mounted a very public campaign to exonerate his son of the charges. The case reached London's High Court in 1910.
         The play....The Winslow Boy....written by Terrence Rattigan in 1946....was followed by two films....the first in 1948 which was very good and starred Robert Donat as the famous barrister who took up the expelled cadet's case....and the second film from 1998 is as of today my second favorite film of all time. It starred Jeremy Northam as the barrister Sir Robert Morton.
          A little side bar so to speak on that film. My wonderful pastor at the time had seen the film first and so highly recommended it to me that my wife, son, his friend and I travelled about 25 miles or so to see it. I was totally absorbed when about half-way through the film the reel snapped or something. Everyone in the theater waited and waited....twenty minutes passed and an announcement was made that they could not fix the problem, and that we, the audience, could come back at another time. Someone in the crowd yelled out...."At least let us know how it turns out!" I....what can I say....I jumped up with hands in the air and responded..."Don't anybody say anything!"
          So I'm not going to tell how the film ends but will describe how the boy's father spent much of his probably sizable bank account in defense of his son. You had to look carefully but as the scenes progressed pieces of furniture, wall paintings and other ornaments disappeared from the home as they were sold off to pay for the defense.
          I'm writing this post because of a main tenet in the film. The boy technically could not appeal in the courts because it was a Royal Navy issue and the Admiralty "can do no wrong"...kinda like the Trump administration to many conservatives today, but he could also not appeal the charge because it was not a court-martial. Sir Robert Morton, a fictitious name for the real barrister, took the matter directly to Parliament. In that appeal to the Parliament Sir Robert used what was an archaic legal point called a petition of right. whereas the defendant pleads for the case to heard as a "a matter of grace," or simply...do what is right. The defense then was built upon...."Let right be done."
          President Trump is in trouble because of a number of factors not the least of which has been his own mistakes. He filled his administration with the very people we fought against for years before he came along. He has not been either truthful or transparent in all his dealings with us. Many may love his tweets but they disgust the rest of us. Everything seems to be 'the art of the deal' with him with very little attention to just doing what is right!
         Mr. President......Let Right Be Done.....do what is right and forget about the politics! These friends that you have brought along will be of no help....and are part of the problem. You are in the process of splitting conservatives and I fear that you could care less....but along with the conservatives that you are jettisoning is also that which originally propelled you to where you are....that being the passion for someone somewhere....to Let Right Be Done.

         Young George Archer-Shee was eventually commissioned in the British Army after completing his education at another school. He died at the age of 19 at the First Battle of Ypres in 1914! You know I think that I'll pull out that CD and watch the film tonight....for at least the tenth time!

Friends Don't Let Friends....

        President Trump's new Director of Communications in the White House tweeted that he had deleted years of  past tweets that both reflect the typical establishment Republican agenda and an outright Progressive agenda. This is supposed to placate us in our concerns....and from the looks of it it may have placated us, but a more accurate word would be that he successfully 'buffaloed' us.
        He implied in his tweet that the POTUS agenda is now ,more important than his personal beliefs. Two possibilities here folks...either this man is a perfect fit with President Trump for neither seem to rely on principles.....or.....President Trump has proved to be nothing but an establishment elite, so Anthony Scaramucci quite naturally can get on board and support him 100%.
        Before this is all over many conservatives will deplore themselves for falling for Donald Trump's promises. What it 'Boyles' down to is this, that many other conservatives talked a good game on conservative issues such as gun control, climate health care,and globalization but the real issue was narcissistic....they were in a battle with Progressives.....with Trump they win.....they win! The issues themselves are turning out to be not as important as....they themselves coming out on top!
        Indeed, some of Donald Trump's real passions agree with ours but they are turning out to be only those that coincide with his personal agenda of  'keep America safe enough to build a great economy.'

Friends Don't Let Friends.....7/20/2017

         The deception is remarkable in itself but what is even more remarkable is that conservatives do not readily see the deception. President Trump is taking the tact that he promised to get rid of Obamacare, and that he has been doing his best since he became president to do just that. This is pure falsehood and deception. To add insult to injury he blames the Congress as if the Congress let him down.
          President Trump did everything that he could to coerce rebellious members of the Republican Party to sign onto the Obamacare Light bill this past March. A novice to politics should be able to spot this, so why can't the majority of conservatives? It's the height of audacity and the depths of unmitigated gall to actually address us conservatives today with the disingenuous at best and downright lying statements at worst that he does.
          Obamacare repeal seems to be as just an annoying labor problem to Donald Trump. He would probably be willing to go either way just get it done with so that he can begin to build. The Paris Climate Agreement is another example. First of all he had to wait and wait in Paris before he finally said the he would take America out of the agreement. As of today his words are still just that....words. By its very nature that agreement is confusing as to how one actually does get out and we may not see anything concrete for two to three years. To make matters worse, his comments to Emmanuel (God with us) Macron while in France placed doubt on what he might eventually do. Mr. President...state what you have done and even what you plan on doing but don't just to lead us on and tell us that this is a done deal.
         Senator Jeff Sessions strong endorsement of candidate Trump was very important during the campaign. Sessions was fighting for us while Donald Trump was more concerned with putting on Miss Universe Pageants. OK, the recusal may or may not have been the best thing to do. In an honest political climate it probably would have been the best thing, but what President Trump did to now Attorney General Sessions in that interview with the New York Times.....with the New York Times of all places....was low class....and should disturb even the most ardent Donald Trump supporter.
         My main concern is this whole mess is whether President Trump will let his political problems delay or maybe even expedite or in any way influence or change dealings with North Korea? We would need 100% of any president's attention on a matter of such importance! Will these problems effect whether or not or in what way he acts if Israel is involved in a hot war once again? This is what often happens. George W. Bush would have acted on Iran ten years ago if it were not for the then upcoming 2008 presidential election. This issue with Iran would have been settled by now. Instead it is 1000 times worse.

         Some conservative talk show hosts are concerned that Ivanka may now have her security clearance reviewed. Here's how my mind works....I'm more concerned about what she has been a part of before she had that security clearance....and even that she has a security clearance. President Trump is not only inexperienced in government security matters, his ultra-aggressive 'get it done' mentality should have led his advisers at the start to read the riot act to him.  But then Jared is one of those advisers isn't he. And now so is Ivanka even though she stated during the campaign that she was..."just going to be a daughter." Friends...playing the lapdog does not help Donald Trump....actually may jeopardize his administration....and therefore certainly doesn't serve America's best interests. Analyzing and even critiquing the president's words and actions (such as his tweeting) can only help both the president and those of us who hope that he serves America well. He doesn't need attack dogs and certainly doesn't need lapdogs. He needs a friend that can smell a fire and then wake him up.

The Ninth Of Av

         The Ninth of Av on the Jewish calendar is a day of fasting and mourning in Judaism....maybe the saddest day of all on the Jewish calendar. Both the first and the second temples were destroyed on that date, and along with a slew of other disasters that occurred on the Ninth of Av over many many hundreds of year, it points to what may be the saddest day of the year for them. Jews know this day as Tisha B' Av. It occurs on a different day of the Gregorian calendar every year and this year....2017.....Tisha B' Av begins at sunset on July 31st and ends at nightfall on August 1st. If you are interested you can Google either the ninth of Av or Tisha B' Av for the history behind the fast day, and the current observations of it that are required.
         In America we tend to pick a day....such as Memorial Day....to honor a certain group of Americans....in this case those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country. In the following post of mine from last June, I looked to a certain day of the week.....every week. Every Lord's Day I'm hoping that God might, through His Holy Spirit, move mightily in the pulpits all across America. It hasn't happened yet and similar to as described in the following post where the Jews had the rallying cry of.....'Next year in Jerusalem'......I've labelled my hope as......

Next Lord's Day At The Foot Of The Cross  

          "Next year in Jerusalem!" It may have been a rallying cry at one time but today its meaning  depends on what Jewish person you poll on the subject. The phrase is still repeated in ceremony two times a year at Passover and Yom Kippur. Even after researching it I still don't have a handle on the importance of these words to the Jewish community. I bring this up because I do understand incorporating a saying into your life that has great meaning....even if only to you.
          If the American people are ever to awaken to our predicament and our culpability in that predicament I would think that it would have to begin on a certain day. Even if it would turn out to be a long process it would still have to have a beginning. Would it be in response to an event? Would the American people be shocked into submission to the God they acknowledge but keep at arms length? If so it should not be a day that we would forward to.
          Or would God have mercy upon us and awaken our pulpits that have lain dormant for so long? Would pastors put aside the church growth mentality and preach the Christ of the book of Hebrews, and the salvation of the book of Romans, and the worship of the Psalms, and the judgment of Revelation? Would the Holy Spirit then work through these pastors on our cold hearts? Would we then respond? Would I then respond?
          As this world hurries to judgment and another Lord's Day passes with no sign of a quickening of the church I sometimes say to myself.....maybe....maybe it will be....next Lord's Day at the foot of the cross.

DOT DOT DOT DASH DASH DASH DOT DOT DOT....DOT DOT DOT DASH DASH DASH DOT DOT DOT

        It's reported that Facebook is planning on releasing an updated, improved and cheaper Oculus Rift VR headset in 2018. Currently Facebook is only fourth in the global virtual reality market. Before this is all over, 'this' meaning the world's totalitarian drift, the four or five top tech giants will have the world's population firmly under control. Facebook itself has been a plague and now Twitter is causing further havoc in cognitive skills and emotional well-being. Plain and simple....we are being dumbed-down to the point that half of Americans today are virtual robots and many are emotional wrecks.
        It began with narcissism. A number of genuinely intellectual books warned as early as the 1960s that the culture was dying. One that comes to mind was Christopher Lasch's  National Book Award winning ( current interest 1980) The Culture of Narcissism. Another would be the Pulitzer Prize winning (general non-fiction) 1964 Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter.
        Facebook basically says to all...."hey everyone....come on over here and pay attention to me....look at all the cool things I do....I'm really something......come back often because I get better all the time." It is the absolute antithesis of who the Bible says that we should be, and because of this idolatry, wasted time and energy, we in the Christian church have been weakened considerably in discernment. Did you see the news articles yesterday about evangelicals in the Oval Office laying hands on President Trump? What did you think? Ah...there you have it.....my point is proven!
        I wrote the following in a post three years ago:

         "... Prominent psychiatrist and Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow wrote an opinion piece that Fox News titled Facebook Twists Reality Again And Risks Ruining Your Children. Those are pretty strong words. According to the article, Facebook recently acquired, for  $2 billion, a company called Oculus VR (virtual reality). This company is working on and taking pre-orders for a head mounted display, a headset, designed for immersive virtual reality....      
          Dr. Ablow concludes with his "theory" that "Facebook is an addictive technology drug that, like every drug, gives people temporary pleasure and, ultimately, causes many people to become psychiatrically ill" and that "geniuses" like Zuckerberg are "precipitating an epidemic of psychiatric illness---with features of narcissism and depression and dissociation and violent behavior---such as the world has never known." His parting sentence is "Eventually, we will realize that visionaries like Zuckerberg were, at best, blind to the harm they were doing."
 
           There is no stopping Facebook and other tech giants. My posts warning of Facebook, and there have been many, are only meant to encourage the reader to get away from this plague while there is still time. I've lamented how wonderful Christian ministries promote their Facebook pages. Even Dr. Ablow as a Facebook page! I have three of R. C. Sproul's Study Bibles on the shelf in front of me ready to be given away to the person who I think needs a good Study Bible and needs one right away. I picked up an R.C. Sproul book in the bookstore the other day with the sole purpose of giving it away at the proper time. This has been standard practice for decades. We have a stack of Ligonier Ministry's Tabletalk Magazine going back over twenty years. I've read almost every book that R. C. Sproul has written...including the children's books...listened to his sermons for decades....and regularly listen to them today on either refnet.fm or ligonier.org......all without ever seeing their Facebook page! Not only does God not need Facebook....His Word to us is chock-full of descriptions on avoiding the very things that Facebook supplies.

Did I go overboard on this warning about Facebook? The ship is sinking folks....ok it's not  a white lifeboat it's a blue lifeboat.....at least I turned you around and pointed you to where they are!

"Fake Science".....A Book Review.....Sort Of

           Here's how it develops....at least once and often twice a week I walk into a Barnes & Noble and head straight to the Current Affairs section. After going through the books.....and it's not easy because 95% of them are not face forward.....I walk around to the aisle next to Current Affairs which is Christian Life. I then go over to the magazines to see if there are any interesting cover stories. If I haven't found anything by now.....I start all over again!
           Generally I shy away from non-fiction books that cover a different subject in every chapter. I don't really know why. Maybe it's because I just would rather have an entire book on one subject, but this is not always the case and was not the case with Fake Science, Exposing the Left's skewed statistics, fuzzy facts, and dodgy data by Austin Rose. (Regnery Publishing)
           Here's my suggestion if you want to consider it. Go to Barnes & Noble, or Books-A-Million or any bookstore....and read the introduction of seven and a half pages to Fake Science. I'm confident that that's all it will take...you'll buy the book.
           Fake Science covers eleven topics where the 'science' of the Left does anything but real science in its attempt, a very successful attempt by the way, to actually cause the American public to believe that which is not true...all to further the Left's agenda. Let me give one comment in that introduction that I had to read a couple of times because it is so profound....."A 'transgender woman looks at his male body in the mirror and sees a woman in just the same way as an anorexic girl looks in the mirror and sees her skeletal self as fat."
           I rely quite a bit on blurbs when deciding on what book to buy....particularly if I am familiar with and hold a high opinion of the person who wrote the blurb recommendation for the book. I'll give you bits from the four blurbs on Fake Science:

Jonathan Last, senior writer at The Weekly Standard...
           "For some reason the Left only seems to be interested in 'science' when it tells other people how to live their lives. Fake Science is a smart, encyclopedic collection of all the ways the Left professes to 'love' science while rejecting actual, you know, science."

William Briggs, Ph.D., adjunct professor at Cornell University....
            "With verve and vivid examples,  Austin Ruse dissects the Science Bluster, a dance of two steps. First progressives call their politics science. Then, in step two, they dismiss real science as politics."

Robert R. Reilly, author and senior fellow at the America Foreign Policy Council
            after naming..."pseudoscience-transgenderism, 'born that way' homosexuality, abortion, global warming, and others".... he writes....."Each of these has, in fact, become its own religion, which is why its adherents cleave to it against all the facts of real science. You will be entertained and enlightened by Ruse's demolition of these false gods."

Jay Richards, Ph.D.,    author, senior fellow, executive editor, Assistant Research Professor in the School of Business and Economics at the Catholic University of America, and analytic philosopher and intelligent design and free market advocate...
           "For decades the Left has claimed the mantle of science, and accused conservatives of being 'anti-science'.....Austin Ruse does a masterful job of exposing this hypocrisy. He offers a delightfully readable survey of today's science wars and defends real science from its detractors."

Film Review

        My wife and I went to the cinema tonight to see the movie Dunkirk. It was the first time in quite a while that we saw a film where the theater was almost full. Yes it was a Friday night but some reviews were calling Dunkirk the best movie of the year.
         I've probably only seen three new films this year, and I'm very picky on the movies that we go to see, so I can't give an opinion of the best movie of the year. Others have called Dunkirk the best war movie ever. That's an odd phrase when you think about it....those two words don't go together well...best war.
         Dunkirk followed three story lines and switched back and forth frequently so you never had a chance to get bogged down in any one of them. One story line focused on a single citizen rescue boat and its crew of an older man and two young boys. The second followed a small group of soldiers as they tried their best to get off the beach, and the third story line took place in the air as two RAF fighter pilots attacked German bombers that were targeting the rescue ships.
         I would give Dunkirk this...it's cinematic adaptation of ships under attack was extraordinarily vivid. My father was on a troop transport returning from the Pacific theater in World War II when his ship was hit by a kamikaze strike. He suffered burns over much of his body while his friend died next to him on the deck. I now have a better realization of what he had to go through.....it was sobering beyond what I previously imagined....and it may have directed most of my attention to this aspect of the film.
         I thought that the portrayal of the rescue itself in the film, of most of the army, was anti-climatic. It happened quickly...almost as an afterthought....the essence of what the director was trying to impart to us the viewers had apparently already been accomplished. This wasn't a movie that brought cheers at the end. It did not play on patriotism or heroism. There was a patriotic message and there was heroism but the director chose to emphasize the human element in and around carnage and chaos. I cannot even recall the musical score. I do have to wonder what the British will think of the film...and the Scots....who were represented in important scenes...or the French who were pretty much ignored. I also marvel at how God directed the Germans to stop their advance on Dunkirk....not alluded to in the film obviously but known to us who know that God determines the course of all events....giving the allies time to evacuate most of their soldiers.
          What a contrast there is between a film like Dunkirk and Black Hawk Down. Both depicted the chaos and carnage of war....both were built around rescues....but Dunkirk made very few direct attempts to stimulate the emotions other than presenting what happened in May and early June of 1940, whereas Black Hawk Down was gut-wrenching by design. Dunkirk the film may be reflective of the chaos and carnage in our society and culture today. It was made for today's audience. Black Hawk Down was released shortly after 9/11. Today's audience might very well say that we need cold hard facts so that we stay out of wars. Black Hawk Down's audience...of which I was a part of....would more likely have said....There is evil and there is good and there is war....may God help us defeat evil when war is thrust upon us.
          

Devil's Bargain..... A Review

        The book was released to bookstores today. I picked it up at Barnes & Noble this evening, sitting down with it at about 9 PM and finishing it at 1:30 AM. I'm referring to Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Bloomberg Businessweek senior national correspondent Joshua Green.
         This is not your average Theodore H. White election summary but then this election was not in the 1960s. These weren't two standing armies positioning and repositioning themselves before the first assault would begin. Rather this was one standing army....the Clinton campaign....and one group of ragtag militiamen crossing the Potomac in bowriders and dinghies, catching the enemy by surprise as they were sipping martinis and listening to Lady Gaga.
         Quite frankly I don't know if this is supposed to be an anti-Bannon book or not. He comes out as quite the swashbuckler whether it's the navy or Goldman Sachs or Hollywood or Hong Kong. There is indeed a darkness implied in Bannon's life but it's portrayed as a lighter shade of grey. I learned nothing new about Donald Trump in the book, but that's good because I don't think that I can handle any more information on who he has been and who he is. I did learn an awful lot about Breitbart News that I check throughout the day and the radio program that starts my day out Monday through Saturday. (they have a program apparently on the Lord's Day....I wouldn't know)  They're smart, efficient, and take no prisoners, and that comes out throughout the book.
         The author is about as fair as I think that anyone could be considering the polarity of the American public. It would have been nice if he called Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton for who they are but at least he didn't give the standard media whitewash.  
          I may be a little bit biased in the authors favor for he concludes his book with an afterward that I'm totally on board with.....he writes and then expands upon it a little...."I think that there are three main reasons why Trump's administration has so quickly fallen into disorder and confusion."

(1) Trump thought being president was about asserting dominance.

(2) Trump ran against the Republican Party, Wall Street, and Paul Ryan, but then took up their agenda.

(3)Trump doesn't believe in nationalism or any other political philosophy-he's fundamentally a creature of his own ego.

          The concluding sentence in Joshua Green's book is this..."But in the end, it's hard to imagine that Bannon and the legions he spoke for will wind up as anything other than the latest partners disappointed when their deal with Trump turns sour."  Well he's writing about me and I'm already more than disappointed.....and I didn't expect much to begin with! The book is rapid fire political analysis. It's right on as far as I experienced what was going on... albeit from afar.
         What was most disappointing to me concerning the Stephen K. Bannon that I knew from his radio program throughout 2016....who at the time was a more potent force to the individual listener than either Rush or Mark Levin....what was most disappointing to me was that this man who I thought to be somewhat of a God-fearing man....is more "mystical" than spiritual. He views Western Civilization as some sort of holy force field or medieval brotherhood of crusading knights rather than just the more positive elements of a fallen world.
         God will not be mocked and we are about to find that out. Our 'make America great again' attempt to not only bypass but actually totally ignore His dire warnings to us over multiple decades...as a people once favored for a purpose...to bring glory to God....will be brought low if we...beginning with evangelicals....do not humble ourselves and cast away our hopes in this greatly misguided political prince. I lamented in a post well back into 2016 that the one good thing about Ted Cruz failing in his campaign was that he would not have to be directly blamed for the judgments that we are headed for. Donald Trump will find out in short order that machismo does not impress a Holy God...but that it offends Him.
         

We Are At Sea Level As The Tsunami Approaches

        It was simple and almost pure....patriots who gathered together in opposition to an encroaching tyranny.  We had a Marxist president....quite possibly a Communist president,,,,and the most corrupt politician in American history was poised to succeed him.... but the grassroots movement was ready....a vast army fuming as they formed a long line across America.....shifting from one foot to another in anticipation of the campaign ahead. All they needed was for a general to ride out in front of them and give them the order to advance.
        Ted Cruz surveyed the ground in front that would be the battlefield and counted every cannon ball in every caisson. He did everything except get out in front and ignite the fuse.
        Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Stephen K. Bannon and Sean Hannity were captains of horse behind their microphones and were ready to charge if someone out front...anyone out front....would just raise their sabre. Out of nowhere came this plumed hat on a white steed riding up and down the immense line, rallying every soldier. Kepis were raised as shouts drowned out the tempered commands given by the other generals hoping to lead the charge.
        So we had our leader as Donald Trump turned towards the Marxists and the Progressives and the worthless Republican elites, and yelled like furies so loud that it reverberated across the entire battlefield. What followed was a rout. The enemy laughed until their front lines collapsed.
         How would this new Lord Protector rule, as we really knew little about this mysterious champion, and the little that we knew was not good? His ego not only rivaled Barack Obama's but actually dwarfed it. He was definitely the center of his own universe as it seemed that the only thing that mattered in anything was in how it reflected upon him. He was much too vindictive for comfort, and look as we might, aside from his children there didn't seem to be a whole lot of faithfulness if any to be found in his character.
        All of these serious concerns about President Trump were overlooked because there was a genuine hope and even expectation that, weak as his character might be, America could make a 180 degrees turnabout under his leadership. The question that we are attempting to avoid is at what point do we say enough is enough?
        As it turned out President Trump doesn't really give a hoot about repealing Obamacare. It seems that he could care less about the Paris Climate Agreement either. I don't even think that he really has a heart for stopping illegal immigration. He's like the ultimate real estate developer who promised the community everything to get permission to go forward with his project and now has to explain to the commissioners why some of things he promised never materialized.
        Had it not been for the blitzkrieg attempt to impeach him or force him to resign he would have had to answer for his actions by now but this attempted coup has directed all of our attention away from Ivanka, Jared and the globalists. Ironically therefore this Russia probe has kept his supporters who have been scorned off of his back.
        This of course cannot go on indefinitely. North Korea and possibly the Middle East or both will take us in an entirely new direction, and that if a collapse of the world's financial markets or some other catastrophes do not occur first. In reality no candidate for the Republican nomination could have prevented the tsunami headed towards us but the character issue, as it turns out, is more important than we anticipated. Unless we turn from the mantra of 'make America great again' to prayers for mercies undeserved, we will find ourselves strolling along the beach as the waters recede before that approaching tsunami, far from the higher ground that we long ago descended from, and this without even God's hand steadying us.
   




         

"....But The Rebellious Dwell In A Parched Land."

         I remember a conversation that I had with a pretty young Vietnamese girl in a restaurant owned by her father. She asked what Pittsburgh was like. I described snow to her and then asked her if she had ever seen snow. She informed me that she was schooled in Switzerland. Oh well.
         No one really knows for sure but it seems quite likely that North Korea's Kim Jong-un went to school of some sort....at some time or other....in Switzerland. ...reports from one British newspaper are that he was shy, liked professional basketball and was always drawing basketball figures. There may be only one verified pictured of him before he turned 30 years old. Such is life in what the Kim dynasty of North Korea has become.
          His father...Kim Jong-il...the Dear Leader....had at least three sons and two daughters. His death in 2011 was shrouded in secrecy. It appears that he had a stroke and died as a result of it. Kim Jong-un was the youngest son....why he was chosen as a successor is also shrouded in secrecy. Maybe the generals liked him? His estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in Malaysia earlier this year.
          Kim Jong-il's father was Kim ll-sung....the Great leader....and was North Korea's leader from the beginning in 1948.  His past never has been cleared up. He was at one time a major in the Soviet Red Army and before that served under Chinese communists. He was given a new name and then a third which is what he is known as today.
          We do know this...Kim ll-sung was raised in a Presbyterian home and his maternal grandfather is said to have been a Presbyterian minister. He was once photographed warmly greeting Billy Graham and invited him twice to speak in North Korea! He died of a heart attack in 1994...the year of Reverend Graham's second visit. Billy's wife Ruth attended school in Pyongyang in the 1930s as her father was a missionary surgeon in China for 25 years...she visited North Korea in 1997.  According to Reverend Graham, Kim Jong-il told him that his mother used to take him to church and tell him Bible stories. Communism destroyed North Korea and it destroyed this family also.
          North Korea has nuclear capabilities and is ruled by a man....the Supreme Leader...the Glorious Leader...whatever....who says that he scored a 38 under par 34 on his first round of golf...with five holes-in one.  His father's hero....Kim Jong-il's hero....was probably Elvis because he was obsessed with Elvis Presley. Maybe you remember his Elvis shades? The son...Kim Jong-un... was born in 1984 on Elvis's birthday. Usually the Kim dynasty had a few billion dollars in European banks just in case they were overthrown and had to go somewhere else.  Would China or Russia take in Kim Jong-un if necessary?
          We are past the point of no return with North Korea. There was a time when Kim Jong-un could just choose to stop attempting to build an ICBM....but no more. It appears that another missile test may be imminent. Why would he do this? He probably could have gotten season tickets to the Lakers if he wanted them. On the one hand North Korea is a pain to both China and Russia....particularly China, but on the other hand, having a nuclear capable ally to use as a patsy could come in handy some day.
           Billy Graham conducted 417 crusades in 185 countries around the world from 1947 to 2005. Chicago's Soldier's Field once sardined 110,000 people in on a day that was 110 degrees on the field! A crowd of 150,000 welcomed him in Timisoara, Romania. 150,000 filled a stadium in Budapest...and in none of these did the crowd shout...USA...USA...USA. It seems that every major media personality interviewed  Billy Graham and always with great respect. The world no longer has this stabilizing force. The Hour of Decision radio program that began in 1950 finally shut down operations in 2016 upon the death of Cliff Barrows. The last three or four hotels that I was in did not have a Gideon's Bible in a desk or bed table drawer. We have practically no Christian bookstores anymore. Ah but we've got Facebook...and the new gospel is pretty much....Friend me and be saved.
         The world has gone cold and dark.  There is a cacophony of silence in this maddening world....almost as the calm that precedes the storm.

"...That Has Not Bowed To Baal."

          The 19th chapter of the 1st Book of Kings is both sobering and uplifting. I'm sure that you are familiar with it. Jezebel had just taken an oath to find and kill Elijah who in turn then fled into the wilderness. This is sobering because Jezebel's pledge of revenge is so similar to what is happening in America today. The prophets of the godless globalist establishment elites who have essentially over time destroyed that part of America's heritage that was good and righteous were themselves nearly obliterated in the primaries and general election of 2016 but they have come back with a vengeance, determined to once and for all eliminate this Christian influence that has caused them severe problems since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.
          At times it's as if we also no longer seem to have the strength to row against the wind and tide, or to stand alone if necessary. God sat Elijah down for a conversation and instructions and it's fascinating to read. Elijah began lamenting that he was all alone. No one else was holding firm in opposing Israel's worship of the Baals. God then let Elijah know in no uncertain terms that He had reserved 7000 in Israel whose knee had not "bowed to Baal." Well, God surely has left a large remnant in America that have not bowed to Baal..... may He....should it be His will to have mercy upon us.... unleash them in our pulpits and in the public square.       

Bottom Of The First....Eight Errors....Nine Wild Pitches....Five Hit-Batsmen...Three Ejections....Can't Anybody Play This Game?

        It was Thursday, October 13th, 1960. My mother and I lived in a basement apartment in Cheektowaga, New York just next to the Buffalo International Airport. I was ten years old. It was the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series. All the schools had let us out to watch the game. I was a Pittsburgh Pirate fan because both my mother and father were Pittsburghers transferred to Buffalo by Westinghouse. My friend Eddie was watching the game with us. He was a Yankee fanatic who when he hit a home run at wiffle ball would run the bases shouting as a radio broadcaster...."Mantle rounds first....Mantle rounds second....Mantle rounds third.... the crowd goes wild" I still hate Yankee fans.
        Bill Mazerowski came up to bat with one out. I was so nervous that I had to run outside. A minute later my mother had one hand on the back of Eddie's shirt and the other on the seat of his pants and was ejecting him from the laundry room which was the closest exit from our apartment to the outside. Folks, you would have to know my mother, I Love Lucy must have been based on her life. She once super-glued here lips together. Another time she nailed her fingernail to the wall hanging a picture, and yet another time she knew a shortcut to the swimming hole.....the car stopped all of a sudden....we were in the middle of nowhere and our car was teeter-tottering on a bump in the little used country road.
         So I missed Maz's home run...maybe the greatest home run in the history of baseball! If you are old enough, do you remember the year in baseball 1998! Sammy Sosa hit 66 home runs that year but was four behind Mark McGuire who had 70 home runs. According to a New York times article from 2009..."Of the 13 players who hit 40 or more home runs in 1998, eight have now been linked, through Major League Baseball testing, the Mitchel report or other sources to use of (drugs.)"
         Dan Rather, according to the same article, "Led his nightly newscast on CBS with updates on the chase." Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs three years later in 2001. He hit three home runs on September 9th, two days before the attacks on the World Trade Center. Major League Baseball cancelled all games for a week. According to MLB records, the top six all-time single season home run leaders....Bonds 73, McGwire's 70, Sosa's 66, McGwire's 65,Sosa's 64, and Sosa's 63 came in the years 1998 to 2001. Yet today nobody really cares. Roger Maris sits alone with 61 in 1961, the Babe is next with 60 in 1927.
         Why do I bring all these baseball stats up. Well I wanted to tell that Mazerowski story for one thing. Second there's nothing more disgusting than a Yankee fan! I'm kidding folks, I haven't been a real fan of any professional sport for decades. I bring it up because America itself is in the middle of its own tainted home run race. Sanders was ahead...then Hillary throws a beanball at him and he falls down.... Trump hits a home run every day and wins the race....then the American league tries to get the National League's Trump off the record books.....then Russia.....then McConnell.....then this and then that.....I'm sure that you know what I'm getting at.
         Folks, the South Korean president wants to have a picnic with the North....He'll bring the hotdogs and Kim will bring the nukes to cook them....France's president thinks he's Napoleon or Jupiter....one of the other....the Middle East is about to shake your world....and we're mad that you open up a pack of baseball cards and they are all Morning Joe....and there's no gum!
         To President Trump: forget about Russia....forget about the press....throw that ticker-tape tweeting thing-a-ma-jig in the garbage....and get rid of that red hat....fire that batboy Jared! Forget the records....forget about renewing your contract....quit badmouthing your teammates....give up the golf.....quit admiring yourself in the mirror. Concentrate on these things.....keep your eye on the ball....swing level.....run out every ground ball........honor the contract you signed....be thankful for your time in the major leagues....and be thankful to God who gave you a major league swing even though you can't catch and can't throw.

I'm adding two recent posts. The first explains a little the comment in the above post, while the second hopefully expounds on the seriousness of what we face with Kim Jong-un.

The South Korean Dilemna

         South Korea recently experienced their own internal chaos and elected Moon Jae-in president with 41% of the vote. Moon is a Progressive and former human rights lawyer and activist. Does this scenario sound even vaguely familiar to you? Of course it does. Look around at Canada and France and England and Germany...there's not a whole lot of discernment from the West in the electing of leaders.
         I listened to President Moon answer questions from our illustrious press and at the very least it was disheartening for essentially he thinks that if we can but get Kim Jong-un to promise a few things and if we can verify that he keeps the promises.....we can make progress towards peace. I kid you not friends....he actually believes this. There are some extenuating circumstances here and we have to at least put ourselves in President Moon's shoes to grasp how he can be so naive.
         South Korea has lived in the shadow of a murderous and now nuclear North Korea for some time. This isn't new to them. They, the Progressive element, simply wants to keep the danger from getting worse.  Sounds reasonable and probably is reasonable in their perspective, but this argument completely falls apart when the United States is added to the equation.
         We have not lived under the threat of a nuclear attack from North Korea, for it has not had anywhere near the capability to threaten our country, but that is changing fast, so we are in an entirely different situation than South Korea! What has already happened to South Korea...we cannot let happen to the United States. It's as simple as that.
         So although we were on the same page with conservative South Korean leaders who were aware of the always imminent danger and evil just beyond the DMZ, we may not be on the same page today. Are they to jeopardize war with North Korea just to protect us? Kim Jong-un would be 'president' of all Korea today if it were not for the United States but how can we expect the Progressive in South Korea to see that if the Progressive in America despises our past.

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.

               

"And You Know What Is Restraining Him Now..."

The following was my July 4th post:

           Looking at the church in America as a whole, and relative to the accuracy and consistency of the preaching of the gospel from its pulpits, or lack thereof, the power that the church has and therefore its restraining power against evil will be evident. If this be the case, that the restraining power is the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then America will collapse in direct correlation to that weakened gospel message that has been the staple preached to the people. Consequently, as we have seen, evil flourishes in America....evidenced in the chaos in our streets, in our government, and in our lives.
           Our response to what we have observed in America over the past few decades....rampant Marxism in government....the attempted and succeeding destruction of the family....violence and hedonism everywhere....and total abject chaos in media and our educational system....has been to fight evil through politics which can only plug leaks in the dam that is about to break.
           Making matters even worse, previous to the November 8th election we were more than concerned and humbled to a certain degree, but the election 'victory' diminished that concern and basically eliminated any humility we may have had...actually replacing it with a certain profane arrogance. In other words, although we temporarily halted the Marxist assault on our economy and the Communist purge of our values, we remain powerless to change our course and thus our condition is essentially worse!
           The name of Jesus is spoken in the pulpits of America literally every week but it has become just a name. The glory has departed from the American pulpit and sanctuary, replaced by a watered-down easy-believism that attempts to comfort and entertain. Growth is the goal and that demands no discomfort whatsoever. Doctrine....which is just another word for truth....has become synonymous with discord and division. With no doctrine there is no truth and therefore no power...which means that the increasing evils in our society demonstrate the true growth accomplished by the church growth movement.
           My hope all along has been that we would humble ourselves before our God before His judgments upon America reach their apex. Without a faithful pulpit that will not happen. Lord's Day after Lord's Day passes with no discernible awakening in our pulpits. This will change. With God's mercy it will be soon.....but if we get what we deserve it will be after the fact of judgment.
           Others may dismiss what I write here but if you have read this far then you still have concern. A winnowing is ahead. The overall church is in such disarray and has departed so drastically from the very Word of God that a winnowing must come that will be difficult for even the strongest and most faithful. Does God hear prayer? You and I both know the answer to that. Pray for Him to be with us through this winnowing....pray for faithful and strong pastors....maybe God will yet restore some of that restraining force that brought us to another Independence Day.

Note: After posting this a thought came to mind about a novelty song that surprisingly made its way to #1 on the American Pop charts in December 1966. The song was Winchester Cathedral. Since the writer and producer had an accidental  #1 hit, they figured they better have a group associated with it so The New Vaudeville Band was created. The lyrics are interesting even as they pertain to this post.....I changed them just a little bit...and the title of my version would be....Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Cathedral
You're bringing me down
You stood and you watched as
God left town.
You could have done something
But you didn't try
You didn't do nothing
You let Him walk by.
     
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