Judge Napolitano was so concerned that he made an "impassioned plea" directly to the president on Fox News concerning unlawful, political surveillance. He then added this....."about an hour later, the president issued a tweet blasting bulk surveillance and unmasking. Two hours after that, he issued another tweet supporting the enactments of the FISA amendments......what's going on here?" President Trump has been giving us these....'what's going on here moments' for a year now.
We....most of us....have seemingly become mere followers of a charismatic leader.....or groupies in Rock n Roll. We're demonstrating cultic tendencies. While Barack Obama was in office we were sharp....and alert.....and up for genuine debate with anyone....for we knew our facts....and we knew what was right and what was wrong. The radio waves were a hothouse for a heated defense of our constitution and a mental gymnasium. Most of that is all gone now....or at least put on hold. We once took our cue from Thomas Jefferson and pledged our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor....now we're just into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The following post is from December of 2014 but I want to make this point first.....as unpleasant as this concept is to the ardent Trump supporter.....please at least consider it from a common sense perspective .....as treasonous as the uranium deal may turn out to be.....as downright KGB as the surveillance issue may be......as historically earthshaking in America as a coup against a sitting president may be......and I could go on.....as egregiously unfaithful as these things may prove to be......they do not.....they do not.....prove Donald J. Trump....faithful.....or place him beyond reproach in anything! Yet that is in effect what we are doing. The constant outrageous tweeting points to either an impetuous mind void of wisdom.....or a president who knows all too well the personal advantages of keeping the focus on the crimes or foibles of one's enemies. The pep rally mentality focuses on stock market gains and employment figures to the total exclusion of a 'devil to pay' national debt, and 'Titanic' trends on a grossly overvalued Wall Street. President Trump knows the outrage from conservatives over Ivanka Trump being anywhere near the White House.....yet he brought her to Pittsburgh yesterday.....to speak with him! You are being duped friends.
Tempests And Doldrums
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.....
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, that their work might not be in vain. Christians in America are as strong and faithful as they ever were but 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, if it be His will, for His purposes....and for His glory alone!
We....most of us....have seemingly become mere followers of a charismatic leader.....or groupies in Rock n Roll. We're demonstrating cultic tendencies. While Barack Obama was in office we were sharp....and alert.....and up for genuine debate with anyone....for we knew our facts....and we knew what was right and what was wrong. The radio waves were a hothouse for a heated defense of our constitution and a mental gymnasium. Most of that is all gone now....or at least put on hold. We once took our cue from Thomas Jefferson and pledged our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor....now we're just into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The following post is from December of 2014 but I want to make this point first.....as unpleasant as this concept is to the ardent Trump supporter.....please at least consider it from a common sense perspective .....as treasonous as the uranium deal may turn out to be.....as downright KGB as the surveillance issue may be......as historically earthshaking in America as a coup against a sitting president may be......and I could go on.....as egregiously unfaithful as these things may prove to be......they do not.....they do not.....prove Donald J. Trump....faithful.....or place him beyond reproach in anything! Yet that is in effect what we are doing. The constant outrageous tweeting points to either an impetuous mind void of wisdom.....or a president who knows all too well the personal advantages of keeping the focus on the crimes or foibles of one's enemies. The pep rally mentality focuses on stock market gains and employment figures to the total exclusion of a 'devil to pay' national debt, and 'Titanic' trends on a grossly overvalued Wall Street. President Trump knows the outrage from conservatives over Ivanka Trump being anywhere near the White House.....yet he brought her to Pittsburgh yesterday.....to speak with him! You are being duped friends.
Tempests And Doldrums
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.....
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, that their work might not be in vain. Christians in America are as strong and faithful as they ever were but 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, if it be His will, for His purposes....and for His glory alone!
