Merry Christmas....O What A Glorious....Overture!

This post is from Christmas 2018. We need this coming holiday....and I would not have said that a decade or two earlier:

Merry Christmas....O What A Glorious....Overture

             Today we celebrate....all over the world....the birth of a baby....a little over two thousand years ago....a baby who would be a Savior....and a King....in fact the Kings of all Kings....but friends....do not think of a baby in the manger in a crib....for if you were to stand in His presence today you would probably be blinded....and dropped to the ground with no strength to even look up. A baby would be the last thing in your mind. You would not be able to move unless a hand were placed upon you....giving you strength....where you would hear the command not to fear....that is if your soul as of right now has been ripped out of Satan's grasp.
             Is Christmas a modern day Saturnalia? Yes....in a way....and a Christmas tree is just a pagan bush....I have one twelve inches from my left elbow right now. Even in better church times....and at 68 years old (70 now) I've seen better church times....the Christmas holiday would seem to be of little value in causing Americans to really contemplate what happened on whatever day in whatever month it was two-thousand and some odd years ago....but today....as America floats like a rotting tree trunk down a muddy raging river....cascading towards a falls....with rebellion to God out in the open everywhere....that same almost pagan Christmas....but with the little light that is in it....shines brightly out of a dense darkness....and its glorious hymns seem to be as when the angels sang out above the shepherds.
             So Merry Christmas to you....for a baby was born....that baby grew up....and the same angels who thirty-three years earlier had rejoiced....obediently stood aside....probably in rage....as the God/Man who that baby became....had His flesh ripped apart as demons rejoiced. Then the single biggest event this entire universe has ever experienced....or will ever experience....happened. Christ was risen....and the farthest star away from earth....whether it be billions or trillion of light-years away....and every atom contained within it....every electron charge....somehow acknowledged the event surrounding its Creator.
             A baby was born....and the angels rejoiced....it was the overture....to be followed by choruses....and arias....and cantatas....and every imaginable orchestral arrangement....leading up to a grand finale that the angels are preparing for right now!
            So yes....Merry Christmas.....for it was a wonderful overture....but the Composer has left the greatest audiological masterpiece for the grand finale. 

Isaac's Best Christmas Gift Ever

        The following is but a part of one chapter from the novella that I wrote over twenty years ago that I simply titled....Isaac Crockett. You can read it if you want at the link to the left. I'll leave this post up for a day or so as Christmas nears. To set the scene....Anne was the one who originally looked nominally upon God....while Isaac lived in awe at His majesty....but here Anne.....as they were Christmas shopping....was overwhelmed at the birth of Christ....while Isaac was more concerned with the history of Philadelphia....but he was about to get maybe his best Christmas gift ever....

CHAPTER TWENTY

     Anne and Isaac had spent the day in Philadelphia. It was two weeks until Christmas and the first snowfall of the year had graced much of Penn's Woods, more commonly known as Pennsylvania. The plan for the day was to meet at Independence Hall, have lunch and then shop until they dropped. Anne didn't need a tour guide of Philly but Isaac served as one anyway commenting in detail on the development of our Constitution and most of those involved in it, also commenting on the faith, lack of faith, deism, Masonry and outright atheism of those to who it pertained. They stopped to take a picture of a statue honoring the Marquis de Lafayette complete with Isaac's commentary on the differences between the American and French revolutions. 
     "Isaac?"
     "Yes Anne?"
     "Is it Christmas coming up....or the Fourth of July?"
     "Sorry Anne. I get carried away in places like Philadelphia, Boston, Gettysburg....you remember Gettysburg don't you?" (they had met for only the second time at a service area on the Pennsylvania Turnpike....both forced to hole up during a rainstorm....as Isaac was going home after one of his visits to Gettysburg)
     "Tooooche' my love. The Civil War brought us together."

     Isaac's opinion of Christmas was more Puritan than Continental. He disliked the merchandising that put people in debt, worried about the children who thought only about gifts, and dreaded the pagan influence, but was not about to bring these things up.

     "Is Christmastime a special time of the year for you Isaac?"
      Well, so much for ignoring the issues.
     "Anne, I hope to celebrate Christmas and enjoy it as much as I can and certainly hope that I can make it a special time for you...but my heart isn't really into Christmas. I do enjoy the Bing Crosby and Andy Williams type of Christmas songs and I really love the Christmas carols, some of which are nothing short of majestic. I love the snow and getting bundled up and sitting by the fire wondering what chestnuts taste like. I like building snowmen and having snowball fights...so much so that..."
Isaac bent over and started making a snowball, and then another...and another...
     Anne figured out what he was about to do and started running while Isaac lobbed the snowballs at her. He caught up to her, turned her around and held her close.
     "But you know what I love most about this time of year?"
      Anne thought that a romantic comment was coming.
     "What would that be?"
     "I love it that I have never heard the word or seen a...snowwoman. It must drive the feminists
crazy!"
     Anne wrinkled up her nose and Isaac did indeed then get serious.
     "Anne, I hope that you're not disappointed. I'm not a Scrooge...I promise. Every time that I see a manger scene the holiday comes back into focus. Handel's Messiah must be the most beautiful oratorio ever composed. I can't promise you Santa but I can promise you Angels We Have Heard On High."
     "Oh Isaac, I'm not disappointed....but this Christmas is most special to me."
      Isaac thought it was Anne's turn for a romantic comment but she looked up to the sky with an angelic smile on her face and said.....
     "Can you imagine what it would have been like with all those angels singing? Can you imagine how beautiful their voices must have been. I'm sure that the shepherds must have been frozen with awe! The snow must have been the whitest that it has ever been...and the sky the clearest when Jesus breathed his first breath...the Son of God come down to us...all the earth must have stood still at that moment...even the animals near the baby must have been blessed!"
     As Anne's eyes were still looking up to the heavens, Isaac was reminded of how his Dad had described to him her burgeoning faith.  They walked on in silence, hand in hand.

  

And All For A Mess Of Pottage

           I remember when Mark Levin made the comment....he referred to Ivanka and Jared as....."Trump's children".....the other side was going after....."Trump's children"......Ivanka and Jared.....experienced corporate bare-knuckle executives....hardcore progressives....but.....children? Right now we are pounding into the turf Hunter Biden.....but you see that's OK....for we are the righteous....and they are the evil ones! What we do cannot be bad....what they do cannot be good!
           How many times have you heard it said that Democrats went after Trump....from day one....day one! But it's still 35 days until Biden's....'day one'....and we've made it known that he will never get a moment's peace. And then there are the first ladies....as we are treating Jill Biden worse than Donald Trump himself has treated countless women his whole life.....but then again....God's on our side....just ask Franklin Graham.
           It has been a trying year....2020....for everyone. Christmas will be different.....but at least the restrictions would give us an opportunity to slow this holiday season down a little....and have a break from the inferno....to somehow have a more quiet and thoughtful Christmas....if even only a few days....but Donald Trump won't let that happen....as he will attempt to torment his detractors....and all America....through Christmas....and right up till the day that he gets on that helicopter.....if he ever does....and even after that.....and he will continue to whip into a frenzy his own supporters....millions of evangelicals among them....for something that smells good....and that you can eat right now....getting served first....but for it you have to give up....trust in the only One who can help us....and hope in the only One that is faithful....and the peace of truly knowing...."The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever"....and all for a mess of pottage.
   
"Thus says the LORD, 'Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the LORD......Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD....and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream....and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought....nor cease to yield fruit'." (from Jeremiah 17)
            

DISPATCHES

 

Donald Trump fits the biblical definition of a false prophet....who entered the sheepfold not by the gate....but the down escalator....and most of evangelicalism.....to one degree or another....is in bondage to him right now. He has dragged us down to his level....as we have forsaken the glory and the promises of Jesus Christ....and replaced it with the vain-glory and broken cisterns of Donald Trump....in whom we now trust. My prayer every day is that the Lord might open our eyes to this man.
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Why is it that we who are pro-life have always focused on the number of lives that did not survive because of abortion....but all of a sudden on the coronavirus we focus on the number of lives that survived? 
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In May of 2019 Donald Trump tweeted this as Roy Moore was considering a bid for the Alabama Senate seat...."If you actually care about #MAGA more than your own ego, it's time to ride off into the sunset, Judge." I pleaded throughout 2019 in these insignificant posts for republicans to tell President Trump.....in effect....'Mr. President....thank you for your efforts....but you personally are tearing us apart....so please....for the good of the country....turn this effort over to someone else'....but knowing all the while that Donald Trump would never put the country's well-being over his own glory.
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How many times have you heard Donald Trump boast....."I got rid of the Johnson Amendment?" Surely dozens....as it was a regular boast at this rallies.....but the Johnson Amendment is still there....and Trump knows it.....for it was legislated in.....and would have to be legislated out.....and I never heard of him even trying to do so. As time passed.....quite a bit of time.....he was forced to modify that statement.....or not use it all.....but rather approach the subject in a different way....or attempt to nuance the issue.
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John McCain died well over two years ago. Why would Donald Trump tweet this tonight...."Check out last in his class John McCain, one of the most overrated people in D.C."? McCain was on his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam when he was shot down.....while Trump was on his fifth draft deferment. 

Operation Warp Speed....a clever name....and a remarkable scientific and medical achievement....any president that we have had in modern times....seeing the potential devastation of the pandemic.....would have thrown every single resource possible into coming up with a vaccine....and they would have started sooner....while Donald Trump might be the only one to claim afterwards that he accomplished such a great thing.

Donald Trump's grandfather died of the flu....the Spanish Flu....at 49 years of age....in May of 1918....(one of 675,000 Americans to have died from it....CDC statistic).....that particular strain of the flu came back in the fall with even deadlier results.....yet President Trump said in March of this year....after being told that over the past ten years an average of 36,000 had died of the flu...."I never heard those numbers. I would have been shocked. I would've said....'Does anybody die from the flu....I didn't know people died from the flu." That Trump once incorrectly said that his father was born in Germany....when it was his grandfather that was born in Germany....is not surprising....nor that he didn't know that his own grandfather died from the Spanish Flu. I recommended below....Andrea Bernstein's book....American Oligarchs, the Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power....to get a better idea of what is important in Donald Trump's life.....and what is just at times convenient.

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OK Mr. Talk Show Host....since you keep on bringing it up....let's talk about Russia again! The Democrats used this same political tactic for decades....as they criticized Joe McCarthy so much...over so many years....that now they can offhandedly just say....'McCarthyism'....and everyone accepts the premise that the Wisconsin Senator's efforts were wrong. Trump people do that today with Russia....where they have for four now years bombarded us on their one-sided talk shows in that the Russia probe was a hoax....that now they can just nonchalantly but with extreme sarcasm....spew out the phrase....'Russia Hoax'....and the listeners just automatically believe it was a hoax....but nothing could be further from the truth. It's not that Trump willfully wanted to sell us out....it's that he was so involved with Russian money....over so many years....and therefore became so complimentary to Putin....that he needed investigated....while his strange personal meetings with Putin didn't help the situation....and those investigations proved out in that Trump appears to be.....guess what....Russia's Trump.....just as Biden appears to be.....China's Biden! If you want to find out for yourself Trump's history with Russian money....here are some books to start with....

Trump/Russia...A Definitive History....by Seth Hettena
House of Trump/House of Putin....by Craig Unger
American Oligarchs, the Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power...by Andrea Bernstein....and
Crime In Progress....Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion Investigation of Donald Trump....by
Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch....co-founders of Fusion GPS
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OK....you are all by yourself as you read this.....there is no one there for which you have to automatically defend Donald Trump....you can actually.....for a few minutes.....think absolutely on your own....exhilarating thought isn't it.....for we haven't done that in years? Here it is....what would happen if somehow....this election result.....corrupt as it is as I have said from election evening....but by far not the first election stolen in America....if this election result was actually overturned....what would happen in America? Now....in this age of not thinking for a single minute before responding....we would say something like...."who cares....what's right is right....yeah!.....USA USA USA"....or something like that. In reality....America would most likely.....implode......right or wrong.....it would most likely implode.....disaster. You don't like that alternative. None of us do.....but for once in the last four years....think two steps ahead instead of just what tomorrow's polls show. No....there is no possibility that a second term is awarded to this man. That does not mean that we do not fight to get some checks and balances for elections....as we pick ourselves up....and go forward....but not with an impulsive and absurd demand that this very troubled man somehow fires and purges and strongarms his way a second term....the same man who was tickled pink in 2016.....that someone outside of America was helping his campaign.
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I think that a lot of people today are weeping over America. Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been judgments on us. How many times have I posted that thought? And Joe Biden is the same thing. Somewhere in 2016 we made a very poor decision. I'm pointing here to the primaries....and primarily to evangelicals. And now look at us. We needed this break....to clear our heads....and possibly see our own culpability in what has happened to us....but he won't loosen his grip on us....but God can loosen that grip. Possibly reading of David's pleas in the Psalms might stir within us that which we need to pray rightly?
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It's a disturbing film.....from 1957.....Abandon Ship....that starred Tyrone Power. A wandering mine....left over from World War II strikes an ocean liner.....which goes down with about 1000 souls if I remember. Around 26 survive and cling to a lifeboat that is designed to hold maybe 18. Tyrone Power is the highest ranking crew member to survive.....and is therefore the captain.....a man determined to save as many as possible. A storm is coming in....the lifeboat sits low to the water....and Power's character decides that some must be set adrift.  That in itself is hard to take for a number of the survivors.....but the 'captain' has a pistol. OK....they'll do what he says.....so they mention that the women and elderly and the injured stay.....so who is to be set adrift. They are then told that....no.....the weaker ones are to be set adrift.....for they are of no help in rowing. Well....I won't describe some of what happens other then to say as I did at the top.....it is disturbing. The aim of the film is to have the viewers pick sides. I was probably no more than ten when I first saw the film....and the effect of it never left me. It may have had one minor Oscar nomination. Normally it would have deserved more....but it was probably perceived that the public wasn't ready for this question. Unfortunately we may be ready for it today....and I don't think I would want to hear our answer.
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                If Attorney General Bill Barr wrote that resignation letter.....then I'm a monkey's uncle....or maybe he did.....maybe he's as nuts as the rest of them.....but my vote goes to Stephen Miller.....with most likely Donald Trump himself throwing ideas at Stephen Miller. You can fairly easily Google the transcript for yourself.
                Donald Trump tweeted that he had a nice conversation with Attorney General Barr....and then said Barr will be resigning to be with his family at Christmas. Buffalo Chips! To use one of Colonel Potter's quaint Hannibal, Missouri phrases. Thirty-eight days.....can we make it? Everyone in government....almost....on both sides of the aisle....have to be chewing their fingernails waiting for this man to leave....but he will attempt to torment as many people as possible until the day that he walks out the door. How do I know this? Eighty books on him showed me who he has been his entire life. There's nothing   new.     
                 I commented a few times over the past few years how I hoped that he would leave after four years....enjoy retirement at Mar-a-Lago....golf to his heart's content....get a pardon for everything he needs.....and then just bask in the fact that he rose to become the 45th president of the United States....but that's impossible with a man so troubled as he is. Who is there to watch him? It's not going to be Pompeo....and Pence is probably counting the days more than anyone....and ruing the thought of possibly having to become president for a day.
                It was obvious that Bill Barr would be leaving after saying only two days ago that he would not be intimidated by a "deposed king ranting." Yet today he writes this type of resignation letter....'horse hockey.....mule fritters....pigeon pellets....monkey muffins!' We'll find out later what really happened in that room. As for Barr....he wanted this job....schmoozed his way through the hearings....did Trump's bidding on the Mueller Report....and now goes the way of Sessions and Mattis and Tillerson and dozens if not hundreds of others who wished that they were never offered the jobs.
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Boiled Spaghetti

      I mentioned the phrase....boiled spaghetti....in the previous post.....so I thought I would bring back the post where I first used it. This is from November of 2009!

           I think that everyone realizes that music can have a powerful effect in a person's life. I am more of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to music. I know a little bit about many types but I'm not even near an expert in any of them. I know that Richard Wagner's compositions are stirring in a militaristic sort of way. The scene from Apocalypse Now where the helicopter gunship advances on a Viet Cong village, blaring Wagner's Ride Of The Valkyries from speakers, is chilling. When I listen to Ralph (Raif) Vaughan Williams I can picture myself sailing through the whitecaps on a tall ship. Individual songs can immediately transport me to a specific time and place. When I listen to the Fifth Dimension's Wedding Bell Blues, I am laying in my bunk in basic training at Fort Dix with Tom's transistor playing loudly in the next bunk. I am in an EM Club in Vietnam when I hear Roberta Flack singing Killing Me Softly With His Song. I'm sure you experience the same type of moments. I heard it said that Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin wrote the number one rock song of all time Stairway To Heaven while in a trance-like state and I believe that Handel described a similar writing method with parts of his Messiah. It was a song I heard today that reduced me to boiled spaghetti, as it always does, that brought me to this topic. The Winstons were a soul, funk group from the 60s and they went gold with Color Him Father the lyrics start out this way:

There's a man at our house, he's so big and so strong
He goes to work each day, stays all day long
He comes home each night looking tired and beat
He sits down at the dinner table and has a bite to eat
Never a frown, always a smile
When he says to me "How's my child"
I've been studying hard all day in school
Tryin' to understand the golden rule
Think I'll color this man father
I think I'll color the man love, yes I will

            One theme that has appeared in this blog from time to time is my thought that the answers to our society's reeling out of control are not welfare, diversity or toys in abundance. They are God, family, respect for your neighbor and responsibility. This song Color Him Father, is about a man who marries a widow and becomes a father to her seven children. We are entitled to tell the God who we do not believe in that we will be the master of our own fate but no adult should make that choice for a child! Johann Sebastian Bach added the initials SDG after his name on his cantatas, his message being that his work was to reflect Soli Deo Gloria, which is Latin for To God alone be glory! I was an inquirer in 1982 when I saw the film Chariots of Fire (Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Original Score.) The strength of conviction in the man (Eric Liddell) effected me greatly. Country music is not my first choice in music but I hear a lot of it because it is the first choice of my wife. Maybe it is my imagination but it seems that I hear more and more themes that are reverential to God. The Arts, in general, both reflect where the culture is and influence it. It would be a worthy topic of prayer to plead God's mercy upon us by moving in hearts and minds of those who have such gifts!

Note: This post was written in 2009....and from what I can see....and hear....country music does not appear to be anything that it once was. 

I'm Following Franklin Graham's Advice

I watched John MacArthur's evening service this past Lord's Day....December 7, 2020. It was really only a Q&A....and in it Pastor MacArthur said that with this virus spreading that the world is....because of the restrictions...."perfectly suited for the coming of the Antichrist." My question is in how did John MacArthur miss the false prophet in Donald Trump....who falsely prophesied glory and winning for four consecutive years....taking in the process the evangelical mind away from dependence on Christ....and putting it onto a prince? Yes....indeed....be aware of all that is happening from a globalist mentality....(we've been doing this for decades pastor)....but do not under any circumstances think that we.....'Christian patriots'....as we refer to ourselves....are immune from deception on a grand level....from someone claiming that he is on God's side.

Preface from just before the election:  Franklin Graham and John MacArthur would be the two top evangelical voices in America....other than Pat Robertson whose influence is primarily with charismatics....and both men have come to picture Donald Trump's value to the American way of life as taking precedent over his danger to the church. It's understandable with Franklin Graham as his ministry is primarily in disaster relief....but John MacArthur whose book and radio and tape ministries I have consistently recommended for decades totally took me by surprise....said this recently in a phone call from President Trump...."any real, true believer is going to be on your side in this election...." Trump played John MacArthur here. How would Billy Graham have viewed Donald Trump's increasingly erratic and profane years in the White House. Franklin said of his father's last year....2017...."he just basically quit talking. But his mind was still good. So even if he didn't talk to me, I would sit beside him and I'd talk to him." How would R. C. Sproul react to today's Donald Trump....R. C. who went to be with his Lord only a few months before Billy Graham? I think that he would warn of how our eyes were being taken off Christ....and onto a powerful prince.....but.....I would have said the same thing about John MacArthur.

Following Franklin Graham's Advice.....October 15, 2020        

              "Election Day is 24 days away & as Christians we have a responsibility to pray and vote according to His Word. Are you prepared? You can download this special issue of the Decision 2020 Election guide to learn more about what's at stake for our nation." Folks....this is Decision Magazine....that wonderful publication of Billy Graham's that many of us had read many decades ago....when the word....Decision....referred only to a decision to trust in and believe Jesus Christ.

              The above words in quotation marks were a Franklin Graham Tweet from last Saturday. I hope....Lord willing.....to vote according to His Word....as I will not be casting a vote for either of these men....which is a vote in itself.....a vote for trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and His warnings....only some of which were....

"And Jesus answered and said unto them. Take heed that no man deceive you..." Matthew 24:4 (Donald Trump deceived us....but you will never see that if you refuse to read about him)

"And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many." Matthew 24:11 (Donald Trump prophesies the opposite of what does God's Word tells us)

"Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, that they may believe what is false." 1 Thessalonians 2:11 (would not Trump's MAGA be such a delusion)

"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self (DJT), lovers of money, (DJT) proud, (DJT) arrogant, (DJT) abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, (DJT) unappeasable, (DJT) slanderous, (DJT) without self-control, (DJT) brutal,  (DJT) not loving good, (DJT) swollen with conceit, (DJT) lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (DJT) having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people." (2 Tim 3:1-5)

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits." (Matthew 7:15-16a) (would this not refer to Donald Trump)

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world..." 1 John 4:1 (Would not Donald Trump be one)

"For there shall be false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect."   Matthew 24:24 (was not "the greatest economy in the history of our country" just such a great sign and great wonder)

"....for by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." Romans 16:18 (This is what we have experienced on a daily basis through Tweets and rallies and talk radio)

"....but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears..." 2 Timothy 4:3 (that's what we have done)

"For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace..." 1 Corinthians 14:33 ("fear is power"..."I bring out rage. I always have" DJT)

"...they are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and delusions of their own minds." Jeremiah 14:14 ("Our best days are yet to come")

"...they fill you with false hopes..." Jeremiah 23:16 ("winning winning winning")

"Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets." Luke 6:26 (whatever state he is in today will be "the great state of" and whatever congressman that will be on the dais with him will "your great representative" and whatever people he gives a speech to will be "the great people of...")

"in their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories." 2 Peter 2 

"Thus says the Lord GOD, woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing. Your prophets have been like jackals among the ruins..." Ezekiel 13 (Paula White et al)

"For when they say 'Peace and safety' then sudden destruction comes upon them..." 1 Thessalonians 5:3 (and we're gonna make America....(as everyone at the rally repeats)....SAFE again.)

The Battle Of The Monongahela.....And The Tribulation

I like anecdotes....have you noticed? We have a very good friend....a little bit older than us....who was born and raised in one of the key farmhouses on the Gettysburg battlefield. Often when visiting the site of the battle I would make sure that I stopped there....and just imagined her playing in the fields a child....maybe eighty years after the battle. While browsing the non-fiction books at Barnes & Noble recently I picked up a book on Pennsylvania's battlefields and saw an illustration I had never seen before. It was a map of the battlefield from the Battle Of The Monongahela. Not familiar with that battle? Well the post below from 2015 will fill you in on that....but this particular map transposed the streets today in Braddock, Pennsylvania over the positioning of troops in the battle....and there was the street that my father was born and raised on.

The Battle Of The Monongahela....And The Tribulation

            My father was raised in a small community in Western Pennsylvania called North Braddock, which is on the Monongahela River only a few miles from Pittsburgh. The house that he was raised in was on the site  of one of the most important battles ever fought on American soil. Never heard of it? Don't worry, most people living in that area never heard of it either, at least they aren't aware of the significance of it. The battle  really doesn't even have a name but is generally known as the Battle Of The Monongahela. George Washington was an aide to General Edward Braddock who was the 'Generalissimo' of all British and American forces in Colonial America, and who was mortally wounded in the battle. Daniel Boone, before he became famous, drove a wagon in service to the British soldiers in the campaign, and many in the campaign fought a few years later on both sides of the American war for independence!
            In the 1750s the French had their sights on the territory west of the Allegheny mountain ranges. The forks of the Ohio River which is Pittsburgh today was a key focal point for their strategy. The British knew this and assembled what would be the largest British military force ever gathered in the colonies, over 2000 British and American soldiers, and put them under General Braddock to drive the French from Fort Duquesne. They, the Braddock Expedition as the force was called, were to hack their way over the mountains and up the Monongahela River. It would turn out to be more than a disaster. The British in their bright red uniforms and the Americans in their blue uniforms crossed the Mon (as we know it in Pittsburgh) just past the Turtle Creek and then shortly after that, to the cadence of the drums, they marched back across the river (it was only knee deep at the time). It was here on the east banks of the river that they were ambushed by the French and Indians.
             Thomas E. Crocker, author of Braddock's March, How The Man Sent To Seize A Continent Changed American History, described the battle as pure pandemonium among the British and Americans, almost 500 of whom died in the battle. The enemy lost only 11! The British would like to forget this battle... one of the worst defeats in their history.... and Americans were not that interested in remembering it either.... but the importance of what happened in that battle cannot be overestimated.
              As a child my father had played on those streets below the bluffs from which the French and Indians had descended upon the British and Americans. My mother went to dances on what was at one time a battlefield, and later met my father at Braddock Hospital where he was recovering from injuries sustained in the Pacific in World War II? She passed away last year but only a few years ago we visited the house that she grew up in which was only yards away from the bluff where one could see most of what had been the battlefield.
            George Washington's reputation as being invincible began at the Battle Of The Monongahela as he survived with bullet holes in his coat and horses shot out from under him, but this post isn't really about George Washington...or the battle itself as history....but rather the battle as a study in chaos and pandemonium. The British and Virginia officers stood their ground but could not bring order to the men who could not see their enemy who hid behind the trees. Many were killed by friendly fire. The British had all the skills and all the knowledge and more than enough firepower but were decimated because chaos was all around them. That is the reason for this post. Christians will one day experience such chaos and pandemonium....and that day may be in the very near future. We need to know this...and we are not being told!
             Mankind hasn't changed. As brilliant as he can be, he can be just as foolish. We read in Scripture about the very last of the last days and think that we have it all down pat. An evil man arises and takes over the world....he demands that everyone have a mark placed on them in order to buy or sell anything.....Christians say no....he kills many of them....and then Jesus Returns. Only it is not going to be as easy as just recognizing the Antichrist and saying no, for just as the British and Americans experienced chaos and pandemonium on the banks of the Monongahela, so will Christians in the great delusion of the last days. Family and friends will be taken in...making it much harder! "This...mark... is just technological progress in a digital age" they'll be told. 'Friendly fire' will be everywhere. Confusion will reign supreme. Friends....we fall for just about anything now...and this deception is minor compared to what the church will one day experience! 
            From personal observation of end-times conversations over the past thirty years, and even recollections of my own thoughts when I held to a Pre-Trib Rapture, I don't remember the topic of the Christian experiencing chaos and pandemonium being at or even near the top of the list. That's probably because the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Theory tends to make Christians a little less worried about something they won't even be around to experience. That's the short message of this post...if our Lord's return is near, the pandemonium and confusion ahead may be so great that we may even question our own decisions! Whatever generation experiences this will need to know....beforehand.... what God has written to us about those days.... and discernment does not readily come while while one's main interests and passions are on the baubles of this world and not on God's Word

Nebulous To Some......Perspicuous To Others

Preface:  If this is not the day that you kneel before Jesus Christ in humble adoration and repentance...then when might that day be? Don't think too much about this friend.....because you don't even know if you have time to finish the thought. If you pick up that iPhone next to you....and tap on it...check out the time....as I just did....it shows 9:31....I paused for ten seconds or so and tapped again....9:31....I paused again for about ten seconds and tapped....9:31....so I paused yet another ten seconds or so....and tapped....9:32. There is no second hand on a standard iPhone....and that is in a way the life we lead....as we don't see the actual passing of time....we don't see the second hand moving....we only check in every once in a while to see the exact time at that moment. I tapped on my phone again....9:35....but the same date.....December 12th....and I could start to watch A Night To Remember....(the older Titanic film)....and when it's over tap again....and it will still say December 12th.....but I better hurry and do it. You can't stop time folks. You may think that you can put God on hold so to speak....but here you are in a big big club.....billions of members actually....it's called the.....Live For Today Club. The older that you get....the fewer and fewer excuses you can come up with....and the nearer that day comes when you will have to stand before Him. Many if not most know that they are not going to win in this....so they go into full blown denial.....blotting every thought of God and His judgments out of their mind...it'll work....until the alarm goes off. God is not inviting you friend.....He is telling you to come. Yes He is love....and I could tell you about that love and mercy and forgiveness until I cannot keep my eyelids open anymore.....but He is also righteous.....and a judge. You don't know me....and I don't know you....make this the day friend.....make this the moment. Tap....9:58!

Nebulous To Some.....Perspicuous To Others......December 2015

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

"A Plea To Take Communism Seriously"

The following paragraph in italics is from February of 2018. In one of my posts back then....(I haven't been able to locate it)....I took time to laud Rush Limbaugh for actually using the word communism....for it was hardly mentioned because it wasn't the popular thing to do at the time....even though I had at least a dozen posts with communism in the title. Today talk radio warns about communism all the time. The reason for this is that it is a perfect defense of Donald Trump.....yet it would be good for us to remember that it was a different story in early 2018 when I posted what is below....for even as the tariff war with China was heating up....and Xi Jinping was solidifying 'president for life'.....President Trump was making comments like this on Xi Jinping...."He's now president for life. President for life. And he's great....and look.....he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day." And again at the same time...."Can he be better? I always say yes, he can be better....but he's been very good."  The long-and-short of my message here is that we need to examine how easily it is to manipulate us today....for whatever talk radio hosts tell us....(and if you look at it....their narratives are conspicuously always the same)....we take as gospel truth.....thus over time losing our ability to analyse and think on our own. If the threat of communism in China so important today....which it is....why wasn't it that important to President Trump just two years ago? 

 A Pleas To Take Communism Seriously

       Folks.....if you are an avid radio talk show listener.....how many times have you heard the phrase....The Left.....just today?  It's probably been about a dozen or so times if not more. Not only is using this phrase not adequate.....it's almost self-defeating for the purpose of using it to begin with. That term.....the Left.... has become excruciatingly nebulous. We brush it off as meaning just another description of liberals. It has no power to warn or inform. It obscures more than it identifies. The political phrasing of 'left-wing' has French origins and can have a number of meanings if one actually thinks about it....which we do not. It can allude to social justice....that sounds good....or feminism.....or environmentalism. One can even milquetoast it into being of a Bohemian nature.....artsy. Today we mostly use it to describe Socialists or Progressive Democrats....amnesty-the Left.....gay marriage-the Left....impeach Trump-the Left. Although 'the Left' fits the conversation, using it serves as camouflage for the real culprit as to America's collapsing political order......Communism. My opinion here....normally we (talk radio and its listening audience) would use the word Communism a lot more but we have long since been snake bit by the spurious connotations to the word McCarthyism. 

The following is a post from April of 2015.....and I add it here just as example of what I was posting back then:

Communism....Under New Management

          Communism is a dialectic in the Hegelian sense. It changes outwardly to survive inwardly. It is alive and thriving in our country, the very least representative being the Communist Party USA. It can call itself an American patriot or anything else. It feeds on the uniformed, the malcontent, the miscreant and the self-indulgent. Its only enemy is God. 
          I have to remind myself every once in a while that the average American today does not know a whole lot about communism. At times it's almost as if it is seen as nothing but a conspiracy theory, as if it never really existed and as if over a hundred million people were never murdered under it. Communism lies, it kills, it terrorizes, it threatens and carries out those threats. It's godless, it dupes and cons people...whole peoples and when it attains power through coercion and deception it lowers the boom...no more promises for there is no need to give them for it now has total control and will henceforth dictate everything....to everybody!
         Every facet of our society is unraveling before our very eyes.  Emil Mazey, a twentieth century labor leader, is reported to have paraphrased the older proverb known as the duck test when he said the following..."I can't prove you are a Communist. But when I see a bird that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck,, has feathers and webbed feet and associates with ducks- I'm certainly going to assume that he is a duck." Are you willing to read the evidence of how Communism has worked, is working, and even as of now...winning, in America? 

Note: I want to add one additional warning here. Helen Rappaport has written three excellent books on how communism took over Russia through the Bolshevik Revolution.....I particularly recommend Caught In The Revolution....and Paul Kengor has written a number of excellent books on Communism....the latest of which I'm reading right now....The Devil And Karl Marx.....but Europe was awaiting another disaster....as National Socialism arose in Germany largely in response to Communism.....and today we cannot look only to the dangers of Communism.....without being vigilant in that totalitarianism comes in many forms.          

This Is What I Look Like.....

 

....In My Mind's Eye Anyway.......December 2015 

         I guess that I started dressing this way over a period of a few years. Brown is my favorite color and my wife can attest to that.....just about any shade of brown. In all my shirts I simply look for a XXL tag. Now my size is more of an XL but I like the shirt sleeves real loose with maybe a six or eight inch cuff. I'm not really particular about the color of my knee high stockings held up by black garters at the bottoms of my baggy britches which are in turn held up by a leather belt with a big buckle. I like buckles! I'll cover the shirt  with a tight fitting button-down vest and then wear a more colorful doublet, maybe blue, over it. You know what a doublet is don't you? It's kind of like an outer vest that a hunter might wear while rabbit hunting. Any old brown leather shoes will do....as long as there is a big buckle on them. I then like to fasten a fluffy ruff around my neck. You know....like the Dutch Masters used to wear. And everything is topped off with a tall, wide brimmed hat with a leather strap and big buckle on it. Give me my cape to cover my Bible from the rain, and a cane, and I'm ready to go. So...this is what I look like.....

....in my mind's eye anyway!
         In reality... my thoughts, opinions and habits over the period of a few years seem to sway towards these men that were given the derisive sobriquet...Puritans. In the pietistic early days of my Christian walk I refrained from beer and tobacco. I had a vision of what meek was supposed to be and tried to be such but it wasn't my personality. I struggled with this for a while until I saw that meekness was not necessarily in the tone of your voice or what one imbibed or didn't imbibe. Meekness was a deeper attribute, one that viewed others as more important than oneself. A psychologist today might want to cure you of it but this fit my personality.
         Much of my reading was Puritan literature and it was humbling to say the least. Their knowledge made mine seem undetectable. Their dedication made me feel lazy, and their love for one another transcended the temporal that we cue in on today. They were immovable in defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in His written Word to us. They were ideal citizens, fathers and mothers. They laughed one moment but could be as serious as a dead rat the next. They loved their beer and laughter. They did not care what anyone thought of them, only what their Lord and Savior thought of them. This life was a pilgrimage to them...and it was something they were good at.
         I would never....ever....try to emulate them, and I could not have if I tried, but as time passed I saw vague similarities in my thinking...not nearly as honorable or true....but just similarities. I noticed some of this in my own writing, for I can try my best at humor in one post, and in the next write of the awesome immutable majesty of God. I don't see a contradiction here, in fact it seems so natural to enjoy life one moment yet be sober as a pilot the next. I can laugh and converse with a friend one moment and then when we part... pull out my Bible and become transfixed in awe as I read of the glory due God the Father and His Son and His Holy Spirit! I felt that I needed to write this post, for often I thought that the reader might see this odd mixture and wonder how it could be. Whether I have explained it adequately I don't know but at least I gave an attempt. Thank-you for your indulgence.

NOTE: The sculpture is Augustus Saint-Gaudens....The Puritan! There were a few dozen smaller copies made if I remember correctly. The Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh is one....and I make sure that when visiting.....which used to be at least once a year before the current troubles.....that I spend a few minutes walking around it.

DISPATCHES

Voted For Him....Celebrated....Found Out Later Who He Was

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked....” Psalm 1:1a

This morning.....Friday.....Donald Trump is tweeting praises to himself in his usual fashion....this time in that there has been no war with North Korea....or other wars started.....and there are troop withdrawals all over the place. Folks.....just another warning here to those who have been taken in by a masterful cult leader....nothing means anything to Donald Trump that is not in some way meaningful to his perceived glory. North Korea is so much worse than it was four years ago....and many have documented the worsening situation as it happened. As for the troop withdrawals....it is so dangerously easy to for political reasons....actually more of a burning the place down before you leave....to appear as a man that doesn't want war.....(by the way this is the same man who said "Venezuela is who we should be going to war with....they've got all that oil!").....and then as the problems he has caused by his ignorance metastasize under a new administration....just blame it on them.

Things are starting to get more clear on Mike Pompeo....a man that evangelicals had so much confidence in to keep Trump in line. The third State Department Inspector General under his watch is leaving....as the IG issued a report essentially requesting that the wife of the Secretary just get approval for her trips....not condemning the trips....just saying please follow the protocols.....a report of which the Secretary blew up on. This may explain how Mike Pompeo could have for so long turned a blind eye on Donald Trump's antics whereas so many other men of honor could no longer take it.

I jotted down on paper at 12:44 a.m......forty-four minutes after midnight election night.....that Pennsylvania and Georgia would wind up in Biden's column.....this because that's what some of these urban Democrats machines do.....they cheat. I immediately recognized what was happening after a half century of watching these presidential and congressional elections. Trump would have won the election if it were fair....but it's not as simple a situation as it looks at first sight.....for I also remember when leaks were coming out late in H. Clinton's campaign. I knew right then that they had given Trump a big boost....and I celebrated that! Trump's 2016 win was more than tainted by Russian meddling....for as it turns out....a foreign entity helped him win the first time....but he wants back in office because he was the one this time that got the short end of the stick. His impeachment trial was fixed in his favor....as was Bill Clinton's in his favor. Trump gave a whole new meaning to the phrase....'bully pulpit'....over the past four years....and kept his base support strong because of it....as through faithful Fox news....(Friends/Carlson/Hannity/Ingraham etc.)....adoring talk radio hosts....and mind-manipulating rallies....all of his lies and cons were hidden....and now that same information machine would have us believe that this election result is evil triumphing over good. Yes....Trump was cheated this time....as the screw continued to turn....but we are far past the point of no return on doing anything about it....for there would be....as John Buford's character in Gettysburg would spew out....."The devil to pay." Our only hope is making sure it can't happen so easily again.

Note on the above: Our intelligence agencies determined in January of 2017 that Russia meddled to a grand scale in the 2016 election....and that their goals were to undermine our electoral process....aid Trump and hurt Clinton. Of course we immediately labeled this determination the workings of the Deep State. In April of this year a bi-partisan Senate committee concluded the same thing as that of our intelligence agencies.

It was announced today that the Pentagon....reeling recently under the purge of officials....replaced by Trump loyalists....and this under President Trump's orders of course....would limit the amount of help given to the CIA on counterterrorism...."Pentagon plans to cut most of its support to CIA's counterterrorism missions"....as an ABC headline put it. This seems to be Donald Trump's version of....Defund The Police.

Donald Trump is moving quickly to attack his enemies in the last few weeks of his administration....while beginning to pardon his friends. This is an illness.....with nothing to do with justice. Imagine.....just imagine what he would do....after this fraudulent election.....if his powers were extended. Have we on our side lost all vigilance? Have we totally succumbed to the powers and threats of this very troubled man....driven by a maniacal narcissism.....and ruled by a sadistic lust for revenge....in whom it has been thoroughly documented that truth holds no intrinsic value to him....and never has.....that it can be abused.....and parcelled out selectively.....distorted regularly....and purposely and deftly hidden when inconvenient?

The statistic of the percentage of people dying who had the coronavirus.....death rate....is not that easy to determine....particularly since various age groups come into question....but we still choose to use the highest survival rate CDC figure that we can find to downplay the virus.....but have any of us who are pro-life in like manner ever used CDC figures on the survival rate on pregnancies vs abortions? Of course not....for we have always been concerned with how many lives were taken....not how many births occurred. Something has happened to social conservatives concerning our respect for human life. What could it be...or who was it that so destroyed our discernment....that all of a sudden we pick the figure that supports our political position.....over the figure that shows actual deaths?

I posted in August...."Only God knows how many virus deaths there would be if President Trump had his way from the beginning"....without the pressures built up upon him to finally respond. My prayer then and now is....Lord protect us from this man....if not all of us....then your church....let us not be taken in anymore....winnow us Lord....give us unity....cause our first love to return.....for Thy glory alone....in spite of our just deserts....in spite of my just deserts."

So the latest whistleblower....this one in Florida......is of the criminal element.....their information probably being lies....for in this particular acase it does not portray the governor of Florida....a Trump person....in a good light. If the whistleblower.....any whistleblower....in any way....supports the MAGA agenda.....they are automatically a hero whistleblower....but when they oppose the MAGA agenda....they automatically are a fraud....possibly a criminal.....and maybe even a traitor.

When the police show up in the morning in full force.....with a warrant....to arrest someone in the Trump administration....it was a terrible thing.....and we were constantly reminded over the years of how terrible it was....but yesterday....when the police showed up in the morning.....in full force.....even pointing guns at small children....it was a good thing....this because the small children were children of a person that probably does not like Trump....at least she doesn't like one of Trump's people. When someone in power tries to hide statistics....whether it is in the current fraudulent election in Pennsylvania....or coronavirus statistics in Florida....it is not a good thing.....and if we compromise....we are on a downward slide into an abyss of tyranny....whether we are sliding down the left side of the chasm.....or the right.

President Trump retweeted a few days ago a video of long lines forming in Georgia for his rally....with hardly a mask in sight. A photo of a Young Republicans gala event in New Jersey emerged....with only one mask in sight....on that of a waiter. It's as if we are saying...."O God....we are not afraid of your judgments....nor your plagues....nor the chaos....nor any enemies that you threaten us with....for our best is yet to come."

We've used this quaint little ditty for a long time....that going to church does not make one a Christian any more than going into a garage makes one an automobile.....so how did it come about that we are playing with fire with this very serious virus by demanding that we be allowed to go into a church....as if going into that church does indeed prove one to be a real Christian.

President Trump today awarded Olympic gold medalist Dan Gable.....BEAT THE RUSSIANS....with the Medal of Freedom. When Gable won that medal for America....August of 1972....Fred and Donald Trump were being investigated and were later defendants in a Justice Department suit for discrimination in their rental properties....in which they in turn sued the department for $100 million for defamation. This has been the M.O. for a half century....and has never changed. John McCain was in the Hanoi Hilton at the time.... and Donald Trump was classified 4-F....after four student deferments.

I am sick-discontented-and out of humour. Poor food-hard lodging-cold Weather-nasty cloaths-nasty cookery-Vomit half my time-smoak'd out of my senses-the Devil's in't-I can't endure it-why are we sent here to starve and Freeze-Here all Confusion-smoke and cold-hunger and filthyness. A Pox on my bad luck"

The above is from a letter sent home on December 14, 1777 from army surgeon Albigence Waldo at Valley Forge. The passage is taken from a very good read.....Valley Forge....full title.....The Heart of Everything That Is....Valley Forge.....by Bob Drury & Tom Clavin....yet today our complaint is that we have to wear masks....and that everyone had to stay home and cook their own turkey. Waldo's diary jottings appear elsewhere in the book.....with descriptions that make the above look tame.

I have said it for years now.....Donald Trump is a destroyer.....businesses....friendships....he either purposely humiliates with the intent to destroy anyone who does not bow down to him.....or friends and allies fall by the wayside....often destroyed......simply by believing too much of what he says. He has destroyed conservatism.....talk radio......evangelicalism.....discernment itself and the courage to stand up against a tyrant....while driving wedges in families and churches....and whole denominations. God's Word has very clearly told us to stay away from people like this....but we have utterly ignored this valuable precept.

DISPATCHES

We seem to simply tell people of color to escape (urban areas) by moving to the smarter Republican suburbs.....(just not too close to us)....but it's not that easy. I don't know a single Republican today who could hold a candle to Democrat Bobby Kennedy on compassion for the poor....but listen to talk radio and he's nothing but the scum of the earth. Where did we go astray on defining compassion? I experienced first hand both the RFK and Trump phenomenons....and they are apples and oranges....and night and day as to what is compassion.

We need to reevaluate our immigration stance. At worst we have begun to look at.....and have been encouraged to view all people coming in illegally....as possible terrorists or gang members....or at best nothing more than potential Democrat voters who want something for nothing. Some may be....but this I know for sure....all of them are coming closer to you and me with God's Word in our hands....and the gospel of Jesus Christ on our lips. And I know this....most just want to put food on their table. Democrats aren't going to compromise....(I'm referring only to the party apparatus here)....they will have to answer to their Maker....as for us....compromise is not always weakness....but we seem to have lost the ability to discern the difference....and what is even more disconcerting.....to discern when we may have been wrong....or have the humility to admit it if we do.

The following is just one example.....in just one area.....all through November of 2019 President Trump was tweeting about the great stock market for the day.....and then around this time in early December after a market drop he tweeted this.....and I remember it well...."If the stock market goes up or down-I don't watch the stock market....I watch jobs-jobs are what I watch." As you may know....he is tweeting again about the market records. Folks....this is important because in just this one small way it shows how truth is absolutely and totally nothing to him. His words probably do not even register in his mind....only the political need for the day. I have watched this on almost a daily basis now for four years on all kinds of subjects....and I marveled....not as much at what he said.....but that men like Limbaugh and Hannity and Levin could know what he said....and avoid his remarks.....like the plague!

It May Come This Way......Or It May Not

 

Another Monday.....and I'm hoping to hear reports that our pulpits are waking up.....for they have been sound asleep. The following posts were from October of last year and October of 2017. Somewhere in the past....I couldn't find the particular post....I wrote to pastors who might read this that lest they think that they are somehow immune from any criticism....because they have a piece of paper....that God could raise a Jeremiah from the man cleaning out the drain in their basement to warn them that they are neither feeding nor protecting the sheep.

It May Come This Way....Or It May Not

It may come in this way....the last great movement of God in America....the preacher....any preacher....many preachers across the America....arrive at church a little disheveled....as if they hadn't had any sleep the night before....for they hadn't.....in fact they have been tossing and turning all weekend trying to prepare a sermon that they believe God may have put on their heart. The congregations detect something as the uptempo music ends....but the preacher's shoulders are as if they are sagging. Is something wrong they wonder....has the sale for more land for the addition fallen through? The pastor begins by saying that the holiness of God is an awesome thing to be confronted with. He's not looking at the congregation while talking as he usually does but his eyes are lifted to heaven. Maybe this is the setup to a humorous but informative anecdote....he's done that kind of thing before....but his wife is sitting in the front pew....and her lips are moving in prayer. This is no humorous but informative anecdote coming! The pastor reads the Parable Of The Ten Virgins....while his eyes lower to meet those in front of him....and he begins his sermon...."Beloved....how much oil do you have available to trim your lamp.....for you may need it soon....and even if our Lord tarries in His return....we must have oil for our lamps at all times!" It may not happen this way....but each Monday I look for reports on how this preacher or that preacher was extremely solemn in the pulpit....and the congregation responded to his message with equal solemnity.

THERE IS AN UNCTION

Oh pastors....there is an unction
         .....if you do not know what it is I cannot explain it to you
         .....but if you have seen it in others then you must go to the Lord and plead for it
         .....for you are a shepherd
         The wolves have returned to the valleys
         .....they prey on the sheep
         .....they have slaughtered whole flocks
         .....the sheep do not fear them
         The streams are poisonous....many of them
         .....drinking from them brings illness
         .....bathing in them causes distempers
         .....even smelling the water sickens
         You surely have read of those shepherds who tended the flocks before you
         .....maybe that is why you desired to be a shepherd
         .....bring back to mind the fear you had of such a great responsibility.....but also
         .....remember His calming hand upon you....when He said He will strengthen you for the task
         Walk the valleys by yourself
         .....listen for the echo that still reverberates in the clefts
         .....look up to the heavens
         .....picture the host of heaven that once sang out in praise to those glories
         Fall on your knees.....call down that unction.....to proclaim His majesties
         .....cry out for the sheep.....for they are God's.....and you are their shepherd
         .....plead for words....for magnificent words....for words with power
         .....He will hear you....not for your sake....and not for the sake of the sheep
         He will give you that unction....that His name will be glorified among the people
         .....but you must seek it.....you must pant for it
         .....the wolves will then know you
         .....and the sheep will follow your lead....for they will recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd
         

Only A Septuagenarian Might Be Able To See This

             For me....and maybe most septuagenarians....1962 was not only the last full year of Camelot....but also of Happy Days.  It lasted of course only until November 22 of 1963 when hell took off its mask and burst upon us like the first lightening strike of a storm....as Lee Harvey Oswald had to be solely blamed....for America to still be considered good.

            My mother in the beginning of summer 1963 packed up the few bags we had and we took the bus to the train station in Buffalo and then we were off to Pittsburgh. I spent my first summer here....(I actually live a little north of Pittsburgh today)....living with my Aunt and cousins in a town called Turtle Creek....home of the Vogues....who as I understand it probably drank cherry cokes at the same soda jerk counter....and at the same time that my cousin and I would steal off to when we had a few coins.
            What stands out to me of that time is that the different generations might either cook the day's food or play board games in the kitchen and both enjoy the same music played on AM radio. At your leisure sometime look through the top songs of 1962 and 63 that's littered with names like Bobby Vinton and Elvis and Nat King Cole. The Beatles and Stones were just about to come over here....and although they may have been more....exciting....they proved to be much more dangerous....and eventually damaging....and it would never be the same in America.
            Peter, Paul and Mary took the song to number 10 in 1962 but it was the Trini Lopez 1963 hit version that stays with us more today.....If I Had A Hammer. Written by a self-proclaimed communist Pete Seeger.....it later became an anthem for freedom....I'd hammer in the morning.....I'd hammer in the evening....I'd hammer out danger....I'd hammer out a warning.....I'd hammer out love...."
            Slavery was long gone....but the plantations only sent their freed slaves to the cities....where we wanted them to stay....as if on their own reservations....which previously worked out well for us as we successfully assuaged our guilt as to the plight of the American Indian. Today.....almost sixty years later....we still want to make sure that low-income housing stays out of sight and out of mind...."Enjoy!".....@real.
            The Civil Rights Movement of the 60s was more than honorable....as we were trying somehow to make some kind of amends....but it was imperfect....even tainted at times.....whereas today we cannot deal with anything where we might actually have to analyse or use common sense....as in our ridiculing masks or for a time not gathering together....whether it be bars or churches....so we have to be perfectly indoctrinated....either in socialism where if one is not vigilant it leads to communism and anarchy......or in a capitalism that can become a demanding god in itself....leading to pride and destruction....of which both scenarios are today being fulfilled...."For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.....no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (Mathew 6:21,24 ESV)

Update: After posting this I watched a film that I hadn't seen since it was in the theaters in 2006....Amazing Grace....(Albert Finney....Benedict Cumberbatch....Ioan Gruffudd) If you have yet to see this movie....please try to do so....for it's a wonderful film....

God Did Not Commission......'Make America Great Again'

I first posted the following under the above title....on March 3, 2017....about six weeks after the inauguration,,,,,before I even started reading about Donald Trump....a quest which resulted in reading over eighty books on his entire life. It's only the last paragraph after a litany of offenses that all of us Americans in one way and to one degree or another have waved in the face of God. No...the whole MAGA was not from God. It was rather only part of the judgment that God let us blindly fall into....as it proved very clearly how our hope and trust was taken off of Jesus Christ....and put not only elsewhere....but on a man who was a genuine biblical false prophet. (Does he still say...."We are one glorious nation under God.....and the best is yet to come?) 

         Quite Frankly...God has not sanctioned this 'Make America Great Again.' We did not even consult God beforehand on this. He has not commissioned this president....we alone have done this. We will fail just as the Israelites failed when they entered into battle without God's approbation. This is not to say that we should not have voted as we did or attempt the changes that we do. It is rather a clarion call to this man and those around him, to others in America, to us, and to me, to proclaim with every fiber of our being that we have erred, that we have not sought God's direction, that we have not admitted our own culpability, that we are utterly undone....and then to look to Him who holds every molecule in this universe together and implore of Him undeserved mercy....forgiveness....wisdom and strength....and this entirely for the glory of His name alone....of which we have heretofore grossly presumed upon and trampled....and resolve from this moment on to call upon Jesus Christ...our Redeemer....our King...and our Fortress....as our only refuge.

"So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. (Judges 2:14 ESV)

Voice Of The Coronavirus

            About six feet to the right of where I am typing this....matted and framed and hanging on the wall....is a sheet of paper with lines of black ink cursive writing.....and in between those lines....in a few places....purple cursive writing....and one purple splotch about the size of a dime. The purple splotch...to me...just sets it off.

          Someone in the church's employ would write down the sermons as Charles Spurgeon preached from the Metropolitan Tabernacle....this one was from March 30, 1890.....and Spurgeon himself after the service went over the copy and made corrections if necessary....in purple ink. The sermon would then be sent by cable to America and other points all across the globe. This original sheet of paper with Spurgeon's writing.....and splotch....was a gift from my son.....and it thus means a lot to me....for these two reasons.
          Yesterday I listened to a Spurgeon sermon while working in the yard....today while walking was yet another Spurgeon sermon....I think it was a J. C. Ryle sermon the day before....and oh....I listened to a Michael Horton yesterday while cleaning in the basement....and Michael Reeves on Monday. That's five sermons this week.....sermons from the past.....or sermons from men who preach like men from the past.
           Why bring this up. Is it some attempt to brag.....to pridefully boast....."Oh how many sermons I listen to!" Well first of all only a few people who read these posts actually know me personally....so that wouldn't make much sense. No....this multiple sermons a week has been going on with me for almost two years now. I put myself in the dock....so to speak....to write about this.....to hopefully encourage you to do the same thing! Just start Googling the names!
           It has become such that a few times a week at the very least I need to hear one of these faithful men preach the glories of Jesus Christ.....I just must have it! I think that in a previous post I phrased it like this...."If this be fanaticism.....then you must go out and get it....for you do not know what you are missing!" The following post is from this past July:

            Two or three times a week I search for a Charles Spurgeon sermon to listen to on YouTube while either exercising or walking....so I'm pretty familiar with the titles....but today a title came up near the top of YouTube offerings that I had not seen before. The sermon title is....The Voice Of The Cholera....and the message was given at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on August 12, 1866. It's a sermon for today as Spurgeon was commenting on the 1866 cholera epidemic in London. He also focuses in the sermon on two 'ills' that plagued society of his day. They may not be the specific 'ills 'that plague America today but you could substitute two of your own choice and the message would be the same. 
            Cholera and coronavirus aside....it's a sermon you may want to think about listening to. If you are not familiar with the 19th century London Prince of Preachers....most Christians I believe are....you might want to know in advance that Spurgeon's sermons went around the world....and his influence in the church was and is still enormous.....but also that towards the end of his life in 1892....fighting with everything that he had....and warning of the modernist liberal doctrines taking over much of the church....he was censured by the Baptist Union for his ardent defense of the gospel....which would be like the Southern Baptists if they were to have censured Billy Graham for his crusades. Spurgeon's warnings at the time went on deaf ears...and the 20th century came fast and furious upon England....but he continues to speak....we being only the latest. to be blessed.

Note: Benjamin Franklin famously penned.....maybe you have heard of it....this in 1739 as a revival of religion was sweeping Philadelphia...."From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro' the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street." Friends....would not something like the need to hear Christ preached as often as possible be but one way that God might work in a nation....or constant prayer....or the priority of daily reading God's Word over anything else one must do in life?

You can Google....Charles Keolsch, Spurgeon Sermons....and have dozens available from Spurgeon Audio Series.

 

My Prayer For The Then President-Elect Donald Trump

 

The following is a prayer that I posted for the then President-elect Donald Trump. I've talked to Christian friends who had then felt as I did in that we hoped that he would mature in the office of president....but as it turned out it wasn't a case of maturity.....but serious psychological disorders. Most any Christian of at least a few years is familiar with the passage of Scripture in the book of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar was on the roof of the royal palace admiring all that he had accomplished when he exclaimed..."Is this not Babylon the Great that I have built by my vast power to be a royal residence and to display my majestic glory?" He immediately found himself out in the field and eating the grass. A few years ago Donald Trump was interviewed on Face The Nation by the CBS host John Dickerson where he said, "...In my case, I have made over $10 billion net, net, net! I have created a tremendous company! I have some of the greatest assets in the world!" He has continued for four years now since I posted this prayer....exalting as it were....his majestic glory.

December 2016
  
            Lord I lift this man up to you who is to become our president.... for mercies upon his soul Lord and for wisdom that might in turn lead to mercies upon we your children. I see myself in him Lord, not the fame or wealth or great abilities in business but in his blindness and even arrogance. I see myself when I was cast off from your blessings of grace and knowledge of your majesties....I see myself even now in need of the same mercies. Lord, you permitted him to attain that which this world calls great success...show him that it is but a dung heap. He finds himself in a position that he believes talent and purpose has brought him....maybe even fate as he perceives fate to be. Surely his countenance of supreme confidence must dissipate at night when he has nothing to do but lie in bed and contemplate what has happened to him in the last year. Surely Lord the responsibilities must unnerve him. Does he marvel Lord? I pray that he doesn't, for he would not marvel at what you have done for he has shown no inclination to consult you, therefore he would have to marvel at what he perceives he himself to have done....just as Nebuchadnezzar had marveled. In whatever is in store for him in this exalted position he is to assume I pray that if it be thy will that his eyes would be opened to the realities surrounding him...the realities of a world that has rejected its Creator and will therefore be judged by its Creator...and the reality that he also has fallen under this prideful self-exaltation and is in need of the mercy of redemption. Cause him to tremble Lord....at your holiness....at his sinfulness....and if it be in thy plans to have mercy upon us then cause him to humble himself before you just as you did so with us.... and that the accompanying eternal and unsurpassable blessings would also be his as they are ours. I ask not Lord for him to be the champion that he projects himself to be, for you alone Lord are our champion...our captain...and our king. I ask not Lord that our nation would merely be granted more time to move further away from you... but that it would...in whatever time you give us...display clearly to the world a refusal to follow the schemes of those whose plans are for building a new world in total antithesis to you its Creator. Lord, this man is not alone in need of mercy for we ourselves have failed miserably. Show us this Lord....and set us apart once again....for your purposes. If you should will it that we return to you then no force on this earth or in the heavens can thwart our return. Lord, this man has advisers all around him. Some acknowledge that only you cause nations to rise and to fall but most do not acknowledge you. Blind this man who will be called the president to those that are blind to you Lord! Give this man no strength apart from trust in you Lord, for any other perceived strength is worthless and deceiving. Then should turmoil come, we shall have perfect peace Lord...not necessarily peace as man views peace...but peace in the midst of travail....our minds set upon you who not only created the heavens and the earth but controls everything and everyone in this your creation.....and if peace should come....as man views peace....we could do nothing but gratefully acknowledge that you have brought order out of chaos for thy glory alone.

"Compassion For Souls"

 

The Rine......In Spine....Sties Minely.....On The Pline

The following is from 2015. I don't think that I could ever really feel at home in....polite society....the past is just too ingrained....but wonder of wonders....the most marvelous thing happens when one is born again....because every possibly veneer dissolves or dissipates in the full-orbed gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing can invade the oneness that all believers have in Jesus Christ. Oh it may not look that way at times....but you only see that if you take your eyes off of Christ....which we do of course....but the moment that our eyes return to Him.....we are reassured.          

        Aah the theatre! I took an acting class at Pitt in the early 70s and the first half of it was going well. I worked on one scene, not even a scene but a couple of lines, for we all had lines from different plays. I was Paul Bratter from Barefoot In The Park. I stood on a chair and said good-bye to a hole in the skylight. I thought I had great potential for it's not easy talking to a hole in a skylight. Alas, we moved quickly on to improvisational techniques. I was to be a snake on the ground. I was a terrible snake for I had not any idea as to how to slither. My ego was crushed and I dropped the class. Too bad...I coulda been a contender.

        I enjoyed the plays at Pitt's Stephen Foster Memorial Theater and once took a young lady from the Theater Arts Department....(my instructor in one of the theater classes actually)....out to dinner where we met some of her friends at the restaurant. I felt totally out of place in the conversation. We were so different. I felt that they snickered at this older student, and army veteran in a field jacket. (it wasn't a popular resume at the time) I felt that way a little bit tonight even though my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed My Fair Lady at Pittsburgh's O'Reilly Theater in the Cultural District. I'm sure that it was all in my head for I had on a tie and sweater and aside from the pipe and tobacco sticking out of my worn leather coat and the bright yellow, somewhat dirty, ball cap in my hand with specialdogg.blogspot.com embroidered on it, I almost fit in. No, I think that it was the money aspect for these were expensive seats, given in generosity to us from friends, and I'm sure that the folks that support the theater are of the very upper crust. I tried not to move during the performance for fear that it would be found out that a street person had found his way in. I had a coughing spell for about a minute and saw myself as a wastrel imposing his dodgy behavior on the sanctity of an intimate setting of the performing arts. In short, I was Eliza Doolittle trying to be cultured while at the races only to blow my cover because of a tickle in the throat. Yes, I was indeed Eliza, only I could never in a million years pull off what she did at the Grand Ball.
        Untrained eye for the theater though I might have, I thought the play and the actors and the theater were great. There was one scene...one scene where I felt as if I were on the stage. George Bernard Shaw, the author of Pygmalion, aka My Fair Lady, was an atheist and a radical Socialist and he surely was as far away in his intent from my interpretation as Barack Obama is from a constitutional lawyer, but the emotion is the same. Eliza had, for the first time, pronounced one of Henry Higgins phonetic tests correctly....the...Rain...in...Spain...stays mainly....in the plain. She was free, no longer doomed forever to be an uncultured flower girl. She had pronounced something purely. She had partaken of the grace of civilized society. She had hope. It was three in the morning and the governess of the home urged her to get some sleep but the thrill of it had set her to dancing and singing around the room....as a lady....a lady. I'm reminded here of the stories told about Sarah Edwards, wife of the great American theologian Jonathan Edwards, upon experiencing the majesties of Christ. She too could have.....praised her Savior.... all night long! I'm reminded also of my own epiphany many years ago at finding that the most undeserving creature of all was given clean clothes to wear and words of the most profound eloquence to say....."To Him (Jesus) be...blessing....and honor...and glory...and might...forever and ever!" That feeling never leaves one unless one voluntarily bids it adieu.
          I took liberties in this post, for effect, as to people's positions in life, only to emphasize here that....to the one who calls Jesus their Lord and Savior, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for (all) are one in Christ Jesus."

Malachi Speaks To Us Today

  

            In the last book of the Old Testament....God listed some condemnations directly to Israel and Judah.....and in each one God gave what the response would be...."How have you loved us?"...."How have we despised your name?"...."How have we polluted you?"....Why does he not (accept their offerings)?"...."How have we wearied him?"...."How shall we return?"....and....."How have we spoken against you?."
            This could also be a summation of America today....for whether we politically be on the left or the right....Israel or Judah if you will....we just cannot fathom how God could be displeased with us. Yet He is.
            God told them...."If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart," God is speaking to the priests here....."But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction." He told them that they do evil but then they say that God looks at it as good.....and then they challenge Him in...."Where is the God of justice?"
             We are in this mess....and I'm sure that you agree that it is a mess....because as our generations went on we got worse and worse....until we could not even see that we ourselves went wrong.....let alone where we went wrong. We would answer God in the same way....."What's wrong with our worship services and our teachings....and what's wrong with saying God Bless America all the time?" We question that if this that we do does not please God....how then are we to return.....after all we tried our best to put the Republican Party in power? We thus question where the God of justice is in America....not realizing that it is justice we are experiencing.
             This also is a short book....as Jonah and Nahum from the posts below....that's why the minor prophets are labeled as such....but they speak 'volumes' to us today if we would only read them and take heed of what they say to us....for it is the same message as it was to the Israelites of old. At the beginning of Malachi....God mentions Edom's plan and responds to it...."We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins....(Make America great again)....the LORD of Hosts says, 'They may build but I will tear down' "....and that is what He has done. 
              There is hope in the third chapter...."Return to Me, and I will return to you"....but the book concludes with this...."For behold the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble....says the LORD of hosts.....but for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousmess will rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall."
              God is gracious in that He always extends His mercy....if mercy is what our heart really desires. We should see by now that princes and governments are not our answer. There will be a winnowing....and that will make even that which we are experiencing right now seem tame....but there will also continue to be a remnant. We are somewhat beaten up right now....but we are also in....the valley of vision....upon which a Puritan once penned....

"Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
 Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,
 where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
 hemmed in by mountains of sin, I behold 
 Thy glory.

Note: You can read this beautiful prayer by Googling....Valley of Vision....the Gospel Coalition. It's the first prayer in a book of that name published by Banner of Truth....and has provided a dinner prayer for us every evening for over two decades now.