Phantoms Of The Sydney Opera House

             I've always been a bit perplexed on how this movie has been forgotten. How many of you have even heard of it....among its cast were Ryan O'Neal....whose next film was Love Story....and Michael Crawford....who went on to become the phantom of the opera. Sam Elliot is hard to pick out without his mustache....and there are other very capable actors whose faces you would recognize....but maybe not their names.
             The film revolves around a fictitious Rome Olympiad....and the focus is solely on the marathon. The good guy is a communist....and the not-so-good guys are from the West....and the hero is an Australian aborigine. It tackles racism and politics and culture and greed.
             The cinematography is one of the highlights in the Michael Winner movie. Ryan O'Neal is a Yalie here....and Erich Segal wrote the screenplay....and you can see why O'Neal was chosen to be the Harvard preppy in Segal's Love Story released only a few months later in 1970.....a movie I watched in a Sydney theater....while on R&R in the army.
              There is one particular scene that is very personal to me....and I'll describe it here from an earlier post. Ryan O'Neal is an American runner....caring more for a good time than running....and in this scene while taking in the Sydney sights....he is looking across a cove in the Sydney Harbour....at the famous Opera House. I would have stood pretty much exactly where he did....only about a year later....and I also only cared about myself. Here's the 2020 post that I titled.....Down Under.

            I visited beautiful Sydney, Australia twice in the early 1970s while in the army. I'll relate this one experience that I had on my second R&R. The Sydney Opera House that was situated between two coves in Sydney Harbour was built but not in operation as of yet. I was taking in the city one sunny afternoon....standing on an observation point across from one of those coves....admiring the opera house....when a man came up to me....I remember him as maybe being in his mid-to late 30s. He introduced himself to me as a pastor of a local church. Now I was into weightlifting at the time....and the pastor recognized me as one of the many American servicemen wandering about the city. (I wouldn't have been mistaken for Barry Gibb) He told me that his congregation had just purchased a set of weights and some equipment for the youth....and thought that the young boys might be interested in an American servicemen giving them some basic instructions on weightlifting. I had $500 burning a hole in my pocket....was probably waiting for Happy Hour to begin....and politely declined. He politely persisted...."would I give an hour or so to help the youth of the church?" I declined once again....and have not only been ashamed of and regretted that selfishness ever since....but on many occasions lifted that pastor up in prayer to the King of Kings....and Lord of Lords....whom he knew....but I at the time had only heard about.
              I related this story in a little more detail early on in these posts of eleven years. It must have struck a chord in Internet visitors from Australia for there were 'hits' from Down Under all the time.....that totaled up to 3770.....but then abruptly stopped a few years ago.....and I haven't had a single visitor to these posts from Australia since then....not one visitor! So I researched this and found that Australia has moved into some serious Internet censorship where they first sought voluntary monitoring by Internet service providers....but then started legislating....and I think that the issue is still debated over there. So....after going from 3770 hits....to zero hits....it appears that something in these Christian and political posts may have offended someone....or a word or a phrase did not pass through a filter. (Folks....there are visitors to these posts every day from many small nations....but still no more from  Australia)
             I fully expect that someday....and probably soon....we will all be under strict censorship.....and then God's hands will be tied. Now....hopefully you know I don't mean that. In fact God seems to use just such measures that are meant to stymie the spread of the gospel....to do the opposite....to exponentially increase the spread of the good news in Jesus Christ!
             Permit me please to segue here....for it appears to us to be the case....(this is what we are told anyway).....that all would be lost if a Democrat replaces Donald Trump....and Democrats rule the Congress....but God often strips us of all our worldly armor and weapons and power....to humble us....so that we might return to Him....and be given a new set of armor. Yes....we may no longer have a knight's armor ....but then we may more easily be able to kneel! God may have mercy upon us....and He may not....but this is for certain....He will not permit us to navigate this tempest that we are in by a sextant....or by the stars....or by GPS....and we should be so very thankful for that....for only He can bring us safely to harbour!

Note: In years past I had tried a number of times to locate that pastor....to apologize....and thank him. I don't remember his name....but I remember what he looked like....and searched Sydney church websites for a photo of a pastor who would have been ten or fifteen years older than me.....all of course to no avail.

Pick Up And Read

             It was at one time the most published book in the English language....and has never been out of print. References to John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress are everywhere from classic literature to twentieth century literature. They appear in film and even classical music....(Ralph Vaughn Williams).....to progressive rock....(Neal Morse.) Lady Thatcher specifically choose John Bunyan's hymn....(modified and updated over the many years)....He Who Would Valiant Be.....(also known as To Be A Pilgrim).....to be sung at her funeral.....and you can easily Google it.
             More importantly here....Charles Spurgeon....in my opinion....and that of many others.....was the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul. I listen to three or four or five of his sermons each and every week....some sermons many times over....and the wisdom and knowledge that God gave this man is overwhelming to behold. Anyway.....he had written that he read Pilgrim's  Progress 100 times over his.....what was a relatively short 57 years. That means that he was reading Bunyan's book every year of his life and then some. He quoted it often in his sermons.....and I do not believe that he would have been the preacher that he was had not God given him this love of that book. Pastors....when was the last time you read Bunyan's book.....or Googled a Spurgeon sermon on YouTube?)
              I always try to make these posts short....with one message....and in this post the message is....that Pilgrim's Progress makes it clear....or should make it clear to us....that this life is short.....for we follow the main character Christian through his life....and later that of his wife Christiana....in an average length book. 
              We today....and in every age.....do not want to think of life as short....for we act as if....today....lasts forever.....or at least that it is the most important time in our life however long it may turn out to be. If we let it....Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress can give us the warnings that today's pulpits refuse to give us. It never permits the reader to sit in one place too long.....for one can see what that did to Bunyan's character. 'Press on' is the overarching theme.....keep going....pick yourself up if need be....stay vigilant....reach out for help.....give help....warn or comfort.....just keep the faith with your eyes on the Celestial City....and your mind on God's very Word to you....given for just that purpose of calling you and then guiding you on this your own pilgrimage....until we meet our Savior face to face....either upon our leaving this earth....or His return to it to gather us to Himself.

Note:I thought it interesting that the Charles Spurgeon sermon that I listened to this morning after publishing this post....used an example of a boat that is stuck in the mud.....and needed a rising tide to free it. I found it interesting because that very example has been in the news this past week as the giant container ship also needed a higher tide to free it. If you are interested in this sermon just Google....Charles Spurgeon sermon, The Indwelling And Outflowing Of The Holy Spirit.

Three Books In Quick Succession

             The exact months that it began and came to completion escapes me but I believe it was mid-to-late 1981....to late 1982. It began after a trip that my wife and I had made to Europe. Prince Charles and Diana were soon to be wed....and London was all excited. I had absolutely no interest in Christian history of any kind as we visited London and Belgium and Luxembourg and Switzerland and Paris. We took the ferry across the channel on this trip....years later it would be the Eurostar under the channel. At the time I had no idea who John Bunyan was.....and probably never heard the name Charles Spurgeon.
              I was a reader back then.....even as my shift work in a power plant had me almost daily ankle deep in either coal dust or lime slurry....and a quick succession of three books gives an idea of where my life was at the time....and where it would go. Each book I highlighted throughout and carried with me to work every day in my lunch bag.
              The first was a Pulitzer Prize winner....1974....in general non-fiction.....titled The Denial Of Death....by Ernest Becker....described in bios as a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary thinker. I mostly shoveled coal and turned valves.....but the book fascinated me as I remember tearing the paperback in half so it would fit in my back pocket. The basic message was that man has to find a way to deal with death....so he constructs theories to justify his existence. Beck died at 49 years of age....only months before his book was awarded the Pulitzer. Bill Clinton claimed that it was one of his favorite books....and Woody Allen's character of Alvy Singer mentioned it to Annie Hall in the Academy Award winning Best Picture of the same name.
             The second book was written thirty years before but became and still is considered a classic.....recommended by President Eisenhower....and Hillary Clinton this time....in her book describing her loss to Donald Trump in 2016. This book....The True Believer.....written by Eric Hoffer....focused on mass movements.....and man's inherent frailty in following.....and becoming a fanatic....in just about anything that would catch his interest....including Christianity. This was a small paperback and did not need tearing in half.
              So the stage was set.....God had set it....and as Psychology Today was delivered to our home in those days....on a cool evening as I remember it.....with my wife shopping at J. C. Penneys....I strolled along the concourse of the strip mall.....and stopped in a Christian bookstore. These bookstores were literally everywhere back then.....a supply line of helps for the Christian....and a life-saver for the seeker.....(my wife and I later owned a Christian bookstore ourselves)....but today are practically non-existent.....and America is much the less because of it.
               I walked in....the store was called It Is Written....and I asked the owner....a lady....if they carried rosaries.....for mine was in my pocket and had snapped in two. Friends at work....Born Again types.....and Christian television....primarily Billy Graham crusades which were fixtures on the UHF channel....and the 700 Club....were beginning to snag my interest in things of God.....even as I was reading these two very anti-religious classic books. The owner politely told me that they did not sell rosaries so I I just browsed.
                Ever since grade school I have had a fascination with outlines. I loved reading something that used outlines. I don't really know why....but give me a book or paper with a....Section I.....Part A.....points 1...2....and so on.....and I seemed to be able to easily follow along. So there was this book in front of me.....Evidence That Demands A Verdict.....also a classic today....edited by Josh McDowell....a well-known in Christian circles apologist of the Christian faith....and it was in outline form. I bought it....and as it explored Christian history and archaeology and prophesy and the writing and compiling of the Bible....using primarily facts and reason....and along with other events in my life....this life would change....immediately in justification....yet slowly....and forever ongoing....in sanctification. Gone was the fascination with The Denial Of Death and The True Believer. 
                 One last little anecdote....probably within a year of reading these three books....a friend of my wife's was over our house one evening for a visit. We had a nice time as she was interested in more serious topics.....and my new Christian faith came up. She had her own favorite book......British philosopher Bertrand Russell's.....Why I Am Not A Christian. She strongly recommended that I read it....upon which I walked to my bookshelf in the same room....pulled out Bertrand Russell's classic.....highlighted throughout....and politely showed it to her.
               

"It Was Not A Viable Option"

I jotted down the following about a month ago....and I'm bringing it a little bit closer to the top. The topic is one that is increasingly in the news nowadays....UFOs. This is a good place to start a conversation on the gospel.....because the statement I'm about to make will not sit well with a lot of....believers....and that situation has to be addressed.....here's the statement....there are no such beings anywhere in this universe that would be characterized as....'aliens.' It is an impossibility! Are there what we call UFOs? Certainly.....but whatever they are....or the phenomenon is.....it is not alien life. For a Christian not to recognize this is a serious problem....for it points to a lack of understanding on the entire biblical message of creation and redemption. Oh how some readers out there are hopping in their seat over this. If you know me....call me up....we'll have coffee....and straighten this out. There is a second reason that this is important....other than understanding God's creation.....for this could not only be an end times delusion....it conceivably could be....the....end times delusion....and we had better well be prepared in case it is! 

           The Deputy Secretary of State related all that happened that rainy evening in our nation's capitol....in the White House....in the Oval Office. This all took place in a time period of about fourteen hours. It began coincidentally during an informal meeting of the President and his National Security Council. A military aide flew into the Oval without the normal protocols....which in itself was enough to set some of the participants to yelling at the security breech. The aid informed the President and everyone else in the room that NASA had first spotted it and then immediately informed the Pentagon....not only a UFO....but one very clearly seen to be of a formidable military threat....with projections sticking out from under its circular body that looked very much like gun turrets in any military plane or jet that we have ever had. The speed with which it approached was unimaginable.....and the turns it made defied gravity and physics. The Pentagon wanted immediate authority to launch missiles directly at the intruder.....dozens of them....and a nuclear missile if the conventional ones were ineffective. If any of those missiles missed the target....which they most certainly would have.....they would fall to ground somewhere else. Before the aide was finished....generals appeared on a screen that was lowered as the aide spoke.....what was the answer.....to fire or not to fire.....there were only minutes.....maybe even seconds to decide. Every eye in the Oval was on the President....he thought only for a few seconds and said....."do not fire"....which generated some loud disagreement from some of the participants in the meeting who argued that there simply was no choice but to fire in defense....as a UFO was coming straight for the Capitol....avoiding radar....and brandishing what looked to be weaponry. After four minutes of this.....by now a video feed of the approaching intruder was on that screen....becoming bigger and clearer every few seconds. Some grabbed their seats in anticipation of what was about to happen....others simply sat there and waited for what might be their last minutes on this earth. Someone from the source of the video said....."only seconds away!"......those seconds passed.....and the flying intruder simply vanished before their eyes. There was silence for a minute in the Oval....and then orders were being barked....logistical orders and the like. The President and his national security council were quickly ushered into a safer space deep in the bowels of the White House. Hours of meetings followed into the next morning....and the situation was leaked to the media so all the world knew. At 9 am the President stood behind his briefing podium....explained exactly what transpired the evening before....and then asked for questions.....the first of which was....."Mr.President.....the decision that you made....not to fire on the UFO....it appears that it was the right thing to do.....but how did you do it.....and we are told that you remained calm?" The President answered slowly and with precise answers....."If that had been a missile....obviously of human construction.....the defensive missiles would have been fired immediately.....but this was not a video of an earthly missile or spacecraft.....but one that would have to have been from some life outside of our own.....and friends.....you may not agree with my reasoning....but there quite simply is no life anywhere outside of the earth. God's Word is very plain in this. Whatever this was....it was not an enemy nation....not of man.....and not of life outside our system.....so firing on it was not a viable option....in other words....it was not real....rather it was meant to make us think that it was real." Well what do you do now....the media seemed to ask one another....demand the resignation of a man who just acted quickly and prevented the deaths of at least a million Americans....or accept what happened....and let the course of events play out themselves. They opt for the latter.....and all of America was then faced with this decision....let the believer in God and His Word lead without interference....and be thankful for his discernment....or demand his resignation.....the answer that the public gave was.....

Lord's Day Post

             There were two greater lights in London in the latter half of the nineteenth century.....Charles Haddon Spurgeon....Baptist pastor....and J. C Ryle.....Anglican bishop. There were many other faithful pastors but these two not only came to throw great light on the gospel.....but their words live on today.

            So....you will hear a sermon tomorrow. How will you feel when it is over. My guess is that it will be exactly how you felt before it. If you disagree.....please at least take this test. It was a paper....a single chapter written in a book actually....written by J. C. Ryle....but reads like a sermon. Just Google....J C Ryle, Few Saved.....and it will come right up.
            If you decide to listen to this.....and disagree....well at least we are making progress as to determining who holds to the old paths....and who have chosen a new road....but there is a caveat for you....for it is messages like this.....whether they were a sermon or a book or even a tract....that God has used to change men's lives. Do not listen.....if you are not prepared confront the truthfulness of some long held....and even cherished.....beliefs.

"Broad Is The Way"

Preface: We think of Hollywood as the epicenter of our entertainment culture....and it probably is....but Broadway was the foundation. It's odd in this respect....how God's Word gives us this warning in Matthew 7:13...."Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it." Brothers and sisters....we are going to be winnowed down....events will determine this....just as they did in Jerusalem and Rome and elsewhere....and it is going to be difficult. Would it not be wise to know this beforehand. I would think so....as Jesus even told us...."Be on your guard; I have told you all things beforehand." (Mk 13:23)          

             It was a major movie....with big stars....and a plot that was in the news all around the world.....but it still didn't do well at the box office. I'm going to give the ending here in case you want to just boot it up on your computer....for free....and watch it.
             The Hollywood stars were Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner and Tony Perkins.....(a year before Psycho).....and Fred Astaire....the year was 1959....and the plot was that there had been an atomic war....and the people in the city.....(Melbourne).....at the southern tip of Australia....as far as they could tell....were the only people left on earth....as a radioactive cloud that enveloped the rest of the world....was just about to reach them. The movie was....On The Beach.....a title that you might think would star Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.
              OK here's the ending....Perkins character and his wife kill themselves with a pill distributed just like that vaccine being distributed today....and they take along their infant baby. Fred seals himself in the garage and turns on the sports car. Ava Gardner takes the pill.....as Gregory Peck and the men of his United States submarine choose to sail home and at least die in their own country. Gee...I wonder why the theater crowds didn't go for the film?
              It had already been in book form so everyone pretty much knew how it was going to end. The United States government didn't want any part in assisting with the movie....but the Australian government didn't mind doing so.
              The folks of Melbourne went about business almost as usual in the months before the cloud reached them....accepting what was ahead....but as the time did get near.....the film focused in on a Salvation Army type rally.....where a man preached something or other....as the people stood around like zombies. The last scene in the movie is the same setting in the city....with the banner flying overhead that read...."There Is Still Time...Brothers"....only there are no people around this time....as they all had gone home to take the pill.
               In a way the book of Revelation is similar.....as it describes the end....as everyone is running to the caves....hoping that the rocks will fall in on them....rather than them having to face the wrath of the judgment of God. The difference is that by this time in Revelation.....God's redeemed....those that survived the Antichrist....had been taken up in the air to meet their returning Lord and Savior and King.
               The priests and the rulers in Jerusalem were sick and tired.....to put it mildly....of Jeremiah constantly telling them that God was going to judge the city and all of Judah. They persecuted him.....and almost killed him....trying to shut him up....and they had their own false prophets telling them that the best was yet to come. The Baptists had had it with Charles Spurgeon warning them....and the Anglicans were not thrilled either with J. C. Ryle. Billy Graham didn't get real serious with God's judgment on America until later on. Oh he would preach it earlier....but he was driven by it as time passed.
                We don't want to hear this type of message.....but like it or not we are going to have to face it. Do you have twenty-four minutes to give to this subject.....maybe you could skip a half of some March Madness ballgame....or take a break from the spring cleaning. R. C. Sproul's radio program....(renewingyourmind.org)....broadcast a Stephen Lawson teaching episode this week titled.....The Wrath Of God. It actually sobered me up a little....and I thought I was already sober. Just Google it.....Stephen Lawson, The Wrath Of God....and see if it has a similar effect on you.

Recommended: Just Google....J C Ryle....How To Be Saved. 

If It Made Daniel Sick....What Should It Do To Us?

             Jeremiah is known as The Weeping Prophet....and it is pretty obvious why.....as he knew what was going to happen to his beloved Jerusalem....and he knew this in detail....but Daniel.....who was younger but a contemporary of Jeremiah....reacted a little bit differently to what he saw in a few of his visions.
             In what is chapter seven of Daniel....in what would be the middle of his relating various visions.....this is written...."As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me, and the visions in my mind kept alarming me." This was added at the end of this passage...."At this point the revelation ended. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts were greatly alarming me and my face grew pale..."
             The next chapter has Daniel in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar the king....this being two years later.....and after a wholly different vision....we read this as to Daniel's reaction...."Then I, Daniel, was exhausted and sick for days. Then I got up again and carried on the king's business; but I was astounded at the vision, and there was none to explain it.
             Daniel as a youth had witnessed the fall of Jerusalem....the same destruction that Jeremiah had warned of....but this was something different....and even more terrifying....if that could even be possible. He had seen some of what would happen....in our day....to us....in what has to be the not too distant future....and it made him sick!, 
             Daniel seemed to want a little more information at the end of the book....but was told to go his own way....."for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time"....but a little bit more description was given him...."Many will be purged, purified and refined; but the wicked will act wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand."

My point in this post is this....what is ahead for us.....even just glimpses of it.....made the courageous and determined Daniel....distressed and sick! Is there not an underlying message here for us? Well one reason that we do not put two and two together here is that we have fallen for the error of the....pre-trib rapture....where we are not going to experience that which made Daniel sick. If we today had even a glimpse of what is in store for us....we could not possibly be so nonchalant as to the future....or disdainful of any warnings some give us.

I need to add something here. That there are those who teach that pre-trib rapture....does not make them heretics! We are all wrong on something! We are all.....all of us who are interested anyway....working through the days that we live in and what God says about them....together....and we are going to come even more together as time passed.....as many more will be winnowed away.

I need to add this also....it is obvious in what I wrote in this post....that the days that Daniel saw in his vision.....are our days. It would be difficult for me to write it any other way. After forty years of this study in prophesy....and seventy-one years on this earth.....and seeing what is happening all around us today....the horror of the confusion and delusion of it all....and knowing that May 14, 1948 was not just another event in history....I cannot conclude anything else but that Jesus is mounted along with His holy angels....and at the door.....and after the America of my youth has turned into the America of today....along with the whole world....I can do nothing but hope and pray that Jesus is near.

Spurgeon Sermon Recommendation

             As is my habit.....whether working on something around the house....or on an errand....and especially on walk.....I Google up a sermon from someone usually from the past....and more often than not it's Charles Spurgeon. I wanted to recommend the one that I listened to today. It was directed to all of the professors of faith in his Metropolitan Tabernacle....and was preached in 1862. It's a message....about 50 minutes....that I believe we all need to hear at least once a year.....for it is simply directing us to self-examination.....even if we are churchgoers. He titled it....and you can easily Google it as such....Charles Spurgeon.....Self-Delusion....or Many Professors Deceived. 

There's something else I would like to recommend to you.....and if you are familiar with R. C. Sproul I think you will enjoy it. R. C. was a Pittsburgher.....raised not from where I was raised. He was a bit older but I've sometimes wondered if he might have passed a hot dog and Coke along to me at Forbes Field.....or vice versa? If you are not familiar with him....he may have been the very best Christian teacher in America....and therefore the world actually.....because of his ability to state doctrine in a way that was so very easy to understand. He went to be with the Lord a few months before Billy Graham did. Anyway...a book was just published on his life....titled.....R. C. Sproul, A Life....and I'm waiting on my copy....but Ligonier.org this week broadcast a Daily Audio interview with his wife Vesta. Twenty...twenty-five minutes long....it's a great primer. on R. C. Sproul....and would be a great introduction to Ligonier Ministries. To listen to it just go to....renewingyourmind.org....click on archives....then click on R. C. Sproul, A life.

Whether On Papyrus Or Parchment.....Or Paper Or Digitized

This verse is God's message to pastors today....from Jeremiah 1:8....who are fearful to preach what they know should be preached. 

Be not afraid because of them; for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith Jehovah.Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee; be not dismayed at them, lest I dismay thee before them. 

Jeremiah....O Jeremiah....how you loved your city and your people....but even more how you loved God....who told you at such a young age that you were to warn His people that they had rejected Him....and that He had chosen you from the womb....and that you would pay such a dear price. Little did you know as a young boy how long you would have to plead with these people....and how many Kings of Judah you would....face to face...have to tell that their chosen prophets....who prophesied peace and prosperity....were false prophets....and O how you would weep as you saw it come to pass....the people hungry within the walls....walls that would be breached by the Babylonians who you had warned of....and the temple burned to the ground. Even as Nebuchadnezzar set you free....because you had warned your people to accept their punishment....you would still see your words from God rejected....and only God knows how the end of your tears finally came about....but we know today....as those words given you by God....who you had given to Baruch to write down....speak a warning every bit as much to us....as we are just as stiff-necked as those you had pleaded with as you took their insults and persecutions. We know that your tears are dried up....as you now see the LORD in His glory.....that you once only heard with your ears....and that those today who heed the warnings that you and so many others had faithfully given....will also some day see the LORD in His glory. Though today we may not see that glory....we feel it....and know it to be true....much because faithful men like you had simply written down....on parchment and papyrus....words that today are recorded on paper and digitized....that which were given to them.

Joppa To Tarshish

Preface....March 16: You have probably seen at least the headlines in the news as yet another cave in Israel has given up valuable artifacts....and in this case...."fragments of biblical texts"....as NBC reports it. The article added this...."Among the recovered texts, which are all in Greek, is Nahum 1:5-6 which says....'The mountains quake because of Him. And the hills melt.  The earth heaves before Him, And the world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His wrath? Who can resist His fury? His anger pours out like fire, and rocks are shattered because of Him'." This is not a chance discovery folks....as God is just adding to the list of warnings that He has given us continuously and increasing over the past century:

Have you ever been on a cruise where certain ports were scheduled but weather concerns changed the itinerary? That happened to us once.  The Following was first posted December 17:  

       When is the last time that you read the book of Jonah? This small book can be read in a half hour....and that's with meditating on and praying about what you are reading. Well we all know the story.....so why read it again? That attitude on reading God's Word is kind of like saying.....why drink water.....I've had it before......I know what it tastes like.
        So the Bible opened to Jonah tonight.....and that's what I read.....and meditated upon again. The last thing that Jonah wants to do is go to Nineveh and tell them to repent. He thinks that sailing all the way to the other end of the Mediterranean should be far enough from God and Nineveh. I could not count on my fingers and toes the number of times that I wanted to quit. Don't we all feel like that at times....that we don't think we are doing any good anyway? 
         I guess that the Mediterranean can at times get a storm equivalent to Cat 1 hurricane. That's probably what Jonah and Paul both experienced. These men on his boat certainly weren't like the Ninevites.....as even when they found out that Jonah was responsible for the storm.....they didn't want to go so far as to throw him overboard....but after they did....and the sea calmed....and they no longer had any goods to deliver anywhere....they may have just pulled into a harbor.....possibly back at Joppa....and told their story.....and that story may have made its way quickly up to Nineveh.....maybe giving those people a few laughs.....until Jonah showed up....bleached out from the fish's belly....and smelling like Pungent....Eau De Toilette Water....real toilet water.
          There would have been no laughing this time. Maybe we'll stop laughing in America some day. God relented in his destroying Nineveh. At times I think about America during of our Civil War as Nineveh in Jonah's day. Great revivals of religion had broken out in those days.....and just previous to those days.....did you know that? Anyway in a way God relented in destroying America back then. Nineveh went another hundred and fifty years or so before Nahum showed up.....and there was no offer this time....only a warning to get ready. Well.....we kind of went about a hundred and fifty years after the Civil War.....and we had plenty of warnings....pausing a time or two but generally ignoring them. Our Jonah is gone....Billy Graham.....(there were many others)....and Nahum is speaking to us today. 
          Here are a couple of verses from that short book.....(there are 47 verses in Nahum....and 48 in Jonah)....."And I will cast abominable filth upon thee"....."Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven".....and "Thy shepherds slumber".....but there is also....."The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him." (3;6, 3:16, 3:18....and 1:7)

It May Come This Way......And It May Not

Preface: Other than the country collapsing completely there hasn't been any political progress since the Clintons took over in 1992. We....meaning evangelicals.....have literally wasted all these years....as every two or four years the talk radio heads......who are as blind or more as anyone else.....keep telling us that the next election is the most important election in our history.....and we fall for it every time.....and now the big thing is that they attempt to scare us into depending on them....and add to this the last four years where we ourselves put in the most despicable man possible into the White House.....and somehow after the abominable violent rhetoric that led to January 6th....where you would think he finally gets booted out of civil society....if there is any civil society left....he continues to mesmerize and torment. Nothing short of a reformation and great awakening will put an end to what is going on from one side of the nation to the other....and even here our only hope is that God will be with us in what is ahead.

The following post is from October of last year. 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.     

DISPATCHES

"Blitskrieg: An intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory." The question being asked at the time was....now that Donald Trump was gone.....in what direction would the Republican Party go....along with conservatives within it....and evangelicals within conservatism. Well we got that answer......as it came swift as a blitzkrieg.....in fact it was a blitzkrieg of sorts. At first glance everything was working against him....as he just completed four years of hem-hawing around....causing trouble everywhere.....with two legitimate impeachments.....attacking and dividing everyone the entire time.....all of which culminated in his summoning his fringe supporters to the Capitol.....and subjecting America to the horror of January 6th. You would think that he is finally gone....in disgrace....but he came back with a blitzkrieg....where all opposition to Trump is systematically being removed.....and replaced with republican officials who will be obedient to great leader....and it has to be done fast....before we realize what hit us....hence the word....blitzkrieg.
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THE INSURRECTION: I published a DISPATCHES post on the morning of January 6 of this year....the day of the U. S. Capitol rampage....only an hour or so before the violence began. It was so obvious to me that this rally was inciting something...that I turned it off in disgust and wrote...."it is unnerving." It has been years now....particularly at rallies and on talk radio....and increasingly since the November election....that we have been stirred unto great agitation. I literally felt it that morning as I watched....and had to turn the television off. Folks....brothers and sisters in Christ....is this what we want to go back to? The following is what I posted as Trump began to speak....

"Wednesday morning at 11:30....The melody is beautiful.....there's no denying that....and it gives me chills....but the wrong kind of chills. I'm talking about Leonard Cohen's....Hallelujah. The word 'hallelujah' is special......for in essence it means....'praise Yahweh'.....or....'praise Yah.' I cringe when I hear in used other than where it should be used....and that includes Neil Diamond's.....Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. So I booted up the computer a few minutes ago to hear what President Trump was going to say in his appearance at the Washington protest/rally.....and Cohen's song was playing. The chills were there.....and I didn't like it....but to make matters worse.....as the video feed showed from the rear of the first twenty or so rows of people....I saw a few raised hands....swaying back and forth to the song.....as if in a charismatic church. What were they praising...for it's hopefully not the object of the Cohen song? Trump eventually came on.....he is speaking now....and I had to turn him off....because folks it is unnerving....the sway he has....as this very large crowd chanted.....fight for Trump....fight for Trump....fight for Trump!
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It is my contention....disagree if you wish....God simply is not going to let us continue a society where the primary assault is on the children.....which is what we are. They don't have a chance. God has and will put up with a lot from us....but not this. If we Christians think that He is going to let us raise our children and send them to Christian school.....and try to shield them from this culture....while ninety-nine children out of a hundred are as much as sacrificed to the pagan gods of our day.....if we think this....then we are horribly selfish for one thing. And if we think that He is going to let us play Joel Osteen church....or the friendly community church....or especially the MAGA church....where we have more passion for a genuine biblical false prophet....than in falling down in adoration at what God has done to procure our eternal destiny from the fires of hell....then we certainly are to be pitied and we surely will be surprised! He has given us more than adequate warnings for what is ahead....carry on in this way if you wish but at the peril of falling for even greater delusion ahead than what we have fallen for with Donald Trump.
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CYRUS.....Isaiah prophesied that name long before Cyrus the Great came to fulfill the prophesy. Trump supporters looked to Donald Trump as a modern day Cyrus....while many others today look for freedom to yet an altogether different Cyrus....Cyrus Vance Jr.....will he catch Trump.....or will he be another Robert Mueller....who should have known that Trump held captive the Republican Party....that would ignore any findings he put forth in his report. Robert Mueller....a genuine hero in Vietnam while Donald Trump laughed at the suckers who got caught and had to go....is today no more than an enemy to freedom....or so we have been told.....and veterans today apparently cannot see what happened here.
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GREETINGS....YOU ARE DRAFTED: An admiral is in the news as having stated that it looks like China is preparing for war. Huh....don't you believe it....they need our business too much....and besides....God loves us too much....our best is yet to come....and besides.....the virus is going away.....and baseball is starting! Folks...if there is a war coming....which will most likely turn into a global war....you know that along with it will come a military draft don't you? We can't even wear a mask....and we're going to draft millions to go into the military? Vietnam was supposedly a mistake....as was Iraq....and Afghanistan....not exactly stuff for recruitment posters. And who do you draft today anyways? I'm not even sure....women....visitors from Central America....Antifa....Proud Boys....NFL quarterbacks? Or you could ask the question this way....who gets to stay home and make money? Does a bone spur still get you out? Does sexual preference...or sex preference come into it? There's really no college deferments anymore.....just finish your semester. Everybody will be trying to get into the military academies.....where at least you may be able to get your full four year deferment....and then maybe the war would be over.
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If God has us make it to elections in 2022....the House seats won't even be close....and possibly not even the Senate.....that is unless....unless Donald Trump is still motivating beyond belief the Left....and still beyond belief dividing and therefore destroying us. He was given the microphone tonight by one of his people on Fox News. I didn't read the transcript yet.....but wonder if in it he in some way said something like his normal....."this country that we love."? Folks....he doesn't love this country. If he did he would have taken himself out of the picture long ago. The one and only true and great love affair of his life.....has been with himself.          

Private Straggler

We in evangelicalism have no idea the trouble that we are in. We think it has something to do with socialism or communism. If that were the biggest problem then that would be good news....for God would be with us.....but the real problem is that God is no longer with us....Ichabod....the glory has departed. We need pastors that warn us....but instead they comfort us. The church knew back in the 1970s and early 80s that God was going to judge us. It's attributed usually to Billy Graham but it was actually his wife Ruth who said....probably in the 70s...."If God doesn't punish America. Hell have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." We are 100 times worse today....with 100 times less discernment. The following post is from December of 2015:    

        What kind of name is Special Dog? Well that's not my real name of course for my real name is....Straggler.....Private Straggler. I'll be the last one to enter the Celestial City.....and the least of those in line....and the greatest testament to God's love of the unlovable and mercy upon the least deserving of it. And if there is someone behind me I'll wait for them....for by rights I should witness every glory filled face before mine shines in the presence of the King of Glory.
         Friends....examine this concept of God that has taken hold in American religion. I don't blame the people for their pabulum reverence....for they....most of America....have never beheld His glory in a sermon....and never adequately understood what one is 'saved' from! Little is demanded from anyone and less is offered by us in the form of humility. No...I can hardly blame anyone for giving God no more than one percent of their thoughts. I realize this because before He hogtied me with the cords of His love and mercy....and before He branded me with the imprint of His Word upon my soul....I would have been far more excited to meet Elvis Presley than seek His face...let alone stand on holy ground!
         So it is no surprise that people do not recognize the extent of our pitiful state in this country today....nor are aware of the severity of judgments upon us which have only just begun. Politics is seen as the answer because few know what the real question was...."...who do you say that I am?" The answer of course is....."You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." If one truly understands that statement then one would have already beheld His glory, known very well what one was 'saved' from, and realized that we deserve His protective hand being lifted from us!
    
         

How Utterly Pharaoh Of Us

             God had used plagues a number of times to rescue the Israelites. When Abraham had lied about Sarah....thus putting her into Pharaoh's household....God rescued her through a plague on Pharaoh's house. Battles were won in a similar way. Good King Uzziah was stricken with leprosy when pride overcame his fear of God....but none of these examples are as well-known than the ten plagues upon Pharaoh in order to rescue the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
             How long did the ten plagues of take? Well we don't know....but less than a year....and possibly many months....and each time as the plague subsided....Pharaoh's heart was hardened again. God it seems even altered the path of the escaping Israelites....to a seemingly dead end....in order to bring one last judgment on Egypt and Pharaoh.
              The Black Death of the mid-14th century was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions....possibly 200 million people.....in a world that at the time had less than half as many people than does China today. Some historians speculate that the Renaissance....and Humanism....followed because of the devastation of the plague....but the Reformation was just around the corner. Quarantines and social distancing and hygiene....and later on vaccines....were used as protection. I had my second coronavirus shot yesterday.
               No sooner had the English kicked out the Puritans....and brought back the monarchy....then the Great Plague hit London....followed by the Great Fire of London....but even with all of this....the ten plagues upon Pharaoh's Egypt remain the best example of God's judgment....and each time Pharaoh was shook up....but only until the latest plague subsided....when pride returned....and then came another plague.
                We speculated at the time on how 9/11 might change American attitudes....and it did for a while.....a very short while. The following wars were not the plague....but rather the incapacitating division in America as to defending ourselves....which was the real plague upon America. Then we had a great economic collapse....and then a great collapse in discernment....which led to Barack Obama....and then Donald Trump....followed by what we have now....a worldwide plague once again....and inability to even admit that it is a plague....and a what was unsustainable $19 trillion national debt four years ago....that exploded further into a $28 trillion and growing debt....and each time we learn nothing....essentially telling God that He will have to do a whole lot more than that to get our attention....and each time He does....and will continue to do so.
                Meanwhile there is a remnant....all over the world....and they will be rescued....as Pharaoh will once again in essence refuse to let them alone....and refuse to acknowledge God's judgments....but God will not rapture this church....not yet....as He did not just let the Israelites temporarily outrun Pharaoh....but rather His plan will be fulfilled.
                I don't know why it amazes me....(I should only have to look into a mirror)....but it does....how we....Christians....cannot see God's judgments upon this world....and that they are not going to stop....only increase....as this world is not going to outrun them....and we will surely see the return of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.....in yet another Red Sea judgment.
                I don't know how many times I've uttered this prayer in these posts...."Lord....open our eyes to this man Donald Trump"....eight or ten or a dozen? Right now we think that this latest judgment is ebbing....and we are going right back to our dependence on power and might and politics....totally ignorant and disinterested of our own culpability in all that has transpired....always saying...."peace at last"....but this is only until the next judgment comes....how utterly Pharaoh of us.

THE DAY BEFORE

            Giving my wife a Christmas present of a Sonos speaker system has been a bitter/sweet thing....for country music is on all the time....where every song seems to incorporate parts of these lyrics....Oh baby...you look so good in those tight jeans....let's have some beer...talk about God in my beat-up pick-up truck....and then take another look at those jeans....but the sweet is when I just pass by and say....Hey Google....play Bach....where his Cello Suite No. 1 always comes up first.....(remember this from Master And Commander)....and it does not seem to matter if there is a French frigate coming out of the mist....there is at least order in the universe.            
            I may not have watched it back in 1983.....as I worked shifts and a lot of overtime back then....but if I did get to see it on television....or later when it was on Home Video....it obviously didn't make that much of an impression on me. The film was a made-for-tv movie....The Day After....and was aired in October of 1983 with great pre-broadcast advertising. (I definitely remember that....the runner on a lonely Kansas road as a mushroom cloud appears behind him) President Reagan recorded in his diary that he watched it....and that it had an effect on him....and made him even more dedicated to seeing that nuclear war would not happen....at least not on his watch.
             The film is available for anyone to watch today simply by Googling it.....which I did.....and it had an effect....for it did not hold anything back. Reagan said that it had a depressing effect on him....and I can see why. Supposedly when it was aired on ABC in primetime....they didn't even show any commercials after the bombs went off....and that was half the movie. There was a disclaimer of sorts at the end of the film....saying that in a real nuclear war it would be even worse than they depicted in the film....but in order to have a continuing narrative....they toned it down! 
              God's Word....(not the same country music god as in the pick-up)....tells of a similar dystopian world....this in the book Revelation....and elsewhere....but I don't think that God held anything back....and this isn't fiction or speculation. We really don't want to hear about this stuff....I mean the virus is over....(according to the Spring Breakers anyway)....Spring Training is just starting....life is good again....sort of....anyway if we just close our eyes and plug our ears these problems may go away....and if they don't we're getting raptured out anyway.....(spoiler alert....big surprise coming here.)
              Once again....God's Word does tell us about....the day after.....but it speaks a whole lot more about...the day before.....in other words today.....preparation....keeping our oil lamps filled....looking to the return of our Lord and Savior....(not the return of the other lord and savior Trump)....along with His mighty angels!

You Won't Know If You Don't Try It

             This preface is from a May 2017 post.....and I thought I would bring it back today....."The Western mind has been slowly covered by a glacier of doubt about anything but it's own intellectual and physical virility. In such a situation you either freeze to death while admiring your image in the ice or find warmth enough to survive. Many of our churches froze to death while others are currently suffering from hypothermia. The congregations that are 'clothed in scarlet' huddle together in fellowship, hearing the Word of God preached and doing their best to bring others in from the cold." 
              I have listened to all kinds of sermons in the past two or three decades....at weddings or while traveling....or on vacation....or on the radio or television or on tape....and I have this to say....there are probably four or five pillars on that which this corrupt and contemptuous nation of ours has reinvented itself. I wouldn't attempt to put them in order....but I will name one of them....we do not know how or even what to preach anymore.....and since that is supposed to be our sustenance.....we are either already dead or dying quickly.....and are no help at all to our nation....as evidenced by the fact that we had recently fallen for a vile and arrogant false prophet. You would not know this unless you know what preaching used to be like....and even there only at times.....and in various places.....but once you know what it can be like....you would recognize what we have today to be weak unto death.
              Jeremiah would tell us to..."seek the old paths"...."where the good way is"....but we're too busy. If you don't believe my theory...test it....just Google up "Spurgeon....or J. C. Ryle sermon YouTube"....invest 40 minutes to an hour. Here is a warning though....if you do listen to these men or men like these men....you will either leave your current church for lack of preaching....or suddenly become persona non grata there. It's not an easy road....but it would be more than worth it....and you will find fellowship on it if you look hard enough.

"So How Did That Interpretation On The Lord's Day Turn Out For You?"

             Well it's a little less than twenty-four hours until pastors either walk up a few steps into the pulpit....or step behind a transparent plexiglass lectern....or just stand there on the stage....or altar or whatever it is....and maybe move around a little working the crowd.
              It was a Kim Novak/Kirk Douglas film....the name of it slips my mind....for I have not watched it in over a half century....and I'm not interested enough to look up the title....and there is only one scene that sticks in my mind....and that only partially....as some character in the suburb development....is upset with another character in the same suburb development....for washing their car on a Sunday! That was the 1950s...and early 1960s as I remember them. It was a grossly distorted take on the topic of the 'Lord's Day'....from essentially a lost church and culture. 
               Putting this very simplistically....after the 16th century Reformation....the European protestant countries....generally downgraded the historic Christian sabbath....(they had their scriptural reasons....and some of the most wonderful theologians were behind developing this)....while a little later in time....the Puritans in England said that they see it differently in scripture....(that's just one of the reasons 'enlightened' Americans today despise what is their concept of the...."Puritanical'....Puritans)....and the American church followed the Puritans more than the European church.....or the 'continent' as they liked to refer to it. Looking back on all this....and the history of....'the continent'....and if the Lord's Day was designed by God as a hedge of protection....the 'continent' may not have come up with the best interpretation. England as a culture also eventually discarded the importance of the sabbath or the Lord's Day....and then came their 20th century. It is a similar situation here in America....for there was a time when we in general honored the day....and then it morphed into the Novak/Douglas film type of fake honoring of the day.....and now....here we are.
               The sabbath had also morphed into absurdity in both old and modern Israel....as we read in the New Testament....and as we see today where....as I understand it....elevators floor buttons in Israel do not function on their sabbath.....for that is work in having to push the button!
               There are far too many stalwart Christians of the past....Calvin for example....who take a different view on this for us to just discard their opinions....and I would hope that Christians today would say the same thing about our side of this....that there are far too many stalwart Christians of the past....Spurgeon and Edwards for example....who hold to it....to just discard it. (one of Edwards well-known 'resolutions' was...."Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter of the Lord's day")
                To me....the absolute least of the least....(but I still have a mind and an opinion)....the Lord's Day seems to have been designed in part as a hedge of protection upon our discernments.....cut that hedge down....which is what we have done....and we make more mistakes. So...being in peril as we are today....it would seem to me that if we build up that hedge once again....we might begin to have discernment once again....both individually....and corporately. Please pray for pastors today....as many of them are right now working on their sermons....that God's Holy Spirit might have mercy upon them....and therefore us....and endue them with not only discernment....to the glory of God and His Word....but the courage to speak that discernment from their pulpits.

MacArthur Is Involved In Controversy Again....

             The thing that I remember most about Jerry Falwell was when he was interviewed on television....(it seemed to be Ted Koppel's Nightline where he would mostly appear)....was that his head was always held high....and he would defer to the gospel of Jesus Christ in his answers....always with this confident smile on his face.....not caring in the least what the reaction might be. His Moral Majority was the beginning of a Christian Nationalism which has culminated in wreaking havoc in the church over the past four years.....but it was not so at the first.
             Pat Robertson's....(the 700 Club)....Christian Coalition....was the next political organization to come along....and I was right there with him on this in the late 80s....but this became less Pat Robertson....and more Ralph Reed as time went on in the 90s. 
             So we had gone from Jerry Falwell....to Pat Robertson....to Ralph Read....and the next in line in the march to a Christian Nationalism was Karl Rove....(I titled a post back then....Brother Rove's Traveling Salvation Show.)
             Barack Obama slowed down Christian Nationalism for a while....as the Tea Party movement took center stage.....(and I was there also).....but then God's political army came back....led this time by a false prophet....in Donald Trump. We had pretty much abandoned the gospel of Jesus Christ at this point.
              Now the following is rather incredible....but it shouldn't be because this has been John MacArthur all along. He hasn't been in the news lately since his controversial stance on the coronavirus shutdown of churches in California....but he is back in the news again....saying essentially that you will not find him spending his time fighting for religious freedom. His reasoning is that the propagation of the gospel does not depend upon religious freedom....and he's right. I've posted many similar remarks....particularly on the topic of Facebook....in that God does not need Facebook....nor conservatism....nor even America.
             MacArthur's position is that when we fight for religious freedom....we are also fighting for the rights of every false religion.....and every religious enemy of Christ....and whether we like it or not we are joined in with cults and the easy-believism of today that does not save. 
              I have never advocated preaching against Donald Trump from the pulpit....that would be just another slippery slope to slide down....but God's warnings must be preached....warnings on false prophets....on our rebellious nation....and on judgments that are sure to come.....on the coming 'delusion' and 'apostasy'....and greed....and pride....and reliance on princes and armies.....and on ourselves! I'm not even a fan of local ministeriums....where one has to compromise the gospel for unity....nor Washington prayer marches....nor a bunch of President/CEOs of various Christian ministries meeting in the White House to lay hands on a president....nor that absurd National Prayer Breakfast we have to read about every first Thursday in February.
               We have a unity....even though we may never come together....nor even live in the same country. Charles Spurgeon was a baptist while J. C. Ryle was anglican. Both preached to London in the latter half of the 1800s....wonderfully and gloriously and joyously and soberly....and yet I cannot find evidence that they ever even met....although they thought so highly of each other.
                As to John MacArthur's stance on this....nothing is ever to become preeminent above or even even tie itself to the gospel....so MacArthur is surely right on this. Would he need to explain himself a little bit more....probably....but he is making a point. He is obviously more concerned with the possibility of us letting anything obscure in any way the gospel.....and if that means being misinterpreted a little...and taking a little heat....so be it....but the gospel is to be defended at all times....and at all costs. We can have all the religious freedom possible....and out of that have a church that is but a slave to our own desires.

Personal reflection.....I don't know what you thought of the above post....but it took eight hours today to post it....and this is almost a daily thing. The times are increasing in frequency over the past few years when after finishing a post I pray....'Lord....maybe this is the last one?'....because I don't know if I'm helping anything....but another day comes....and another topic. I write this here to let you know that this is not a hobby....and if there is any pride here....it has totally slipped by my self-examination. If you have some space on your prayer list.....I could use it.

        

There Would Be A Direct Correlation

Preface: If you have never visited R. C. Sproul's Ligonier Ministries website....(ligonier.org)....this would be a wonderful day to do so.....and you will never regret it....and possibly always thank God for it.....as the Daily Audio....is Derek Thomas....(he's a pastor with a British accent....and we all know that means that he is closer to God than we are!)....teaching on John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.....and the Daily Video....is R. C. on the topic....The Holiness Of God!  Note: Today's.....(Friday)....ligonier.org's Daily Audio is the third in a Pilgrim's Progress series. If you are new to the Christian faith....or have been a Christian for quite some time but never read John Bunyan's great book....this is definitely an opportunity to grow....and grow fast.        

            On a personal level....as so many others have experienced....this past year has been trying....and grueling....and exasperating. It's also been saddening.....having lost friends to the coronavirus....one particularly....a friend from my work days....my age....who with his wife were raising their grandchild...and so proud of doing that....both he and his wife have died....and I can't help but wonder how that child is doing....having lost another set of parents? Politically and psychologically it's been frustrating....unnerving at times. I keep thinking....Trump will go....Trump will go....anyone else....seeing the division they cause....would leave for the good of the country.....but not Donald Trump.
            Is there any good that may have come out of this pandemic? I don't see anything. Many of us may have been weaned somewhat from professional sports and other similar passions....but we may have wound up just transferring that passion somewhere else? Whether or not the pandemic has humbled us is debatable....for so many are still in denial that it even was a pandemic. Whether those making decisions were mostly right or mostly wrong on the masks....we fought  them tooth and nail every step of the way....and ridiculed their experts....and now in some states we're just saying we're not going to wear them....or do anything else....period. We've set a precedent in disobeying the government for personal political reasons. So we win....for now....but just one example here as to what we may have started....what if our nation has to bring back a military draft.....(which it may very well have to)....the other side....or either side actually....can just take its cue from our mask protests and say the same thing...."we're just not going to do it.....that's tyranny....where's the science?". 
            We have been under a series of judgments from God because of what we have become. The warnings to us have been there for many decades.....increasing in frequency.....with the judgments at times increasing in intensity. Both this Democrat Party of today....and this Trump Party....are judgments. This Covid-19 may have been the worst judgment of all....with both the loss of life and the breakdown of society....but it's not even the most recent as the cold and frigid spell across America was yet another warning gone unheeded.
            There are more judgments to come folks....culminating in......"strong delusion....so that they may believe what is false"....(2 Thess. 2:11)....and a "falling away"...or...."Rebellion"....or...."apostasy"....(2 Thess. 2:3). No.....any 'good' that may come to us from this past year must directly correlate to how much we admit that it is a judgment from God....upon all of us.

So....You Are In College

Preface: The following post is from February of 2016....the national debt was under $20 trillion. It is making news today as it is now $28 trillion....and counting!  

So.....You Are In College       

             You are in college....with your whole life in front of you...facing the same problems and stresses that previous college students have had to deal with....some problems of great distress and some rather insignificant. This is most certainly not a dull age but the everyday news excites rather than mortifies as it should. It tweets a song that may pique interest but it should be terrifying to anyone who has any discernment at all! This election is viewed as entertainment with participants Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, a self proclaimed socialist, a born again Christian...a gentle neurosurgeon and a Mouseketeer? Could it get any better than that? It's going to be a very interesting eight months! Or so we have been duped into believing, and unfortunately it is of such a false hope that we have en masse chosen to take refuge within.
             In truth this election cycle is the 'oldest established, permanent floating Crap game' in Washington D. C., a mob scene that only God can bring order to. That order would have to start with us. We would recognize that no man, no prince, no military might could possibly right this country of ours. We would recognize most of these candidates as the con-artists that they are and the news media as complicit in their con. It was our indulgence of every destructive desire and every charlatan claiming to be our friend that turned our constitutional republic into a banana republic. It could only be a national humbling and repentance that might at least set us on our feet to face what is ahead.
            So, once again, you are in college. If only you knew what higher education in America has devolved into! If only you could fathom the national debt, smell the odorous fumes of our culture, hear the tumult in the streets, feel the earth shaking and see the totalitarianism approaching from just beyond the horizon! More  importantly, if only we as a people would heed the words of the Psalmist in..."let the humble hear and be glad....Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!"

         

What Was That First Love?

Preface: According to few different sources....John Lennon had spent a lot of time in front of the television set in the mid to late 70s.....and often came across television evangelists. One source named Billy Graham and Pat Robertson specifically who Lennon had watched. He contacted Oral Roberts who sent him a copy of his book.....they exchanged a few letters....and soon Lennon who for a period of at least a few weeks....possibly a few months....had told friends that he was...born again....and would use phrases such as....'praise the Lord'.....began telling them that he was....'a born again pagan.' My point here is this....America during the 70s....and much of the 80s....was a 'hot spot'.....for the gospel. This fervor came and lasted twenty years or so. Conversions were intense....and spread rapidly.....and multitudes died.....like me....only to be raised to new life.....while many others seemed infected for a short time....but lived on....'fake positives'....never having died to be born again. We don't seem to catch this virus as often today....at least not with the same symptoms....as that 'first love' symptom seems too often to be missing! My question here is....generally speaking....are we evangelicals really saved? We don't seem to show it anymore. I know the Christians that when we meet....we will talk about the Lord....but I know many more who would be very uneasy in a conversation like that. What kind of salvation is that? Do they understand what they were supposedly saved from? We don't seem to have the slightest interest if the person next to us....or our own children in a lot of cases....are redeemed.....and born again. We do believe in a literal hell don't we....or do we? We are fully aware that a works gospel is a fake....and does not save.....are we not? I've been watching this for years. We might be thrilled if a liberal neighbor would become a conservative....especially if we could be the one who converted them.....but as to their eternal destiny....we do not seem to care? I do know this....the people are not getting the preaching....this is a terrible church age for preaching....and multitudes are perishing for lack of knowledge! The following post....What Was That First Love....was first posted in April of 2020:

What Was That First Love?

             I was reminiscing today to my wife about a Christian friend of mine from decades ago who I had recently contacted. I told her all about him....and how he had a falling out at his church many years ago....and never sought out another congregation....but I added that he still writes Christian posts on the Internet. She nodded and said.....'Well he must be pretty smart."  Then I'm sure I saw her glance over at me before adding...."Then again maybe not?" Hmm?

             The seven letters to seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 & 3 should often be in our biblical reading today....I believe anyway. What more evidence could one ask than...."Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophesy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near." (Rev 1:3) I would think that we would go over each and every church letter to see where we ourselves fit in. I know that I'm described in a few places....(not the good ones)....but the one letter that seems to keep my attention the most is the letter to the Ephesians..."But I have this against you, that you have left your first love...." (Ephesians 2: 4) Have I left my first love? I'm sure that I have in many ways.
             So what might that first love have been like? I've told this anecdote before. Somewhere around 1973....as I would finish my classes at Pitt....provided I didn't go straight to the college bar....which was more often than not....I would stop in the National Record Mart on Forbes Avenue before the Port Authority Lincoln Coach bus came....and also more often than not I came out with a paperback....but once I came out with Reach Out...The Living New Testament Illustrated....the illustrations being photographs of people in what was then a contemporary setting. I paid $2.95 for the paperback paraphrase Bible. The same book is on the arm of this chair that I'm sitting on right now. It was roughly a decade before I would taste the gospel....but I think that I could in a way....smell it back then....for many times later in life I would open that book up and press the pages to my face....and the fragrance of paper transported me somehow to back when I bought it....and it was a wonderful aroma....and it filled me with peace.....a peace that I could not define at the time. I would read those pages and when I read the name....Jesus....I somehow knew that something holy was in my presence....but soon after this I went back to Carlos Castaneda and Thomas Pynchon and Charles Reich and John Kenneth Galbraith and popular authors like that.
             Fast forward to 1982....and the name Jesus now had meaning. He was our wonderful Savior and King. He had raised me from spiritual death to eternal life! I was indeed born again....my sins were forgiven.....I was washed clean. As doctrinally unaware as that young Jesus Generation was back in the 1960s....in reading about it there seems to have been something so sweet....being baptized in the ocean off California. Wonderful ministries sprouted up focusing on discipleship....Ligonier.....the Navigators....and of course packed Billy Graham crusades. Christian music was pure....so unprofessionalized but yet so edifying.  I gave away hundreds of bibles back then....and still have many of my own study bibles....different study bibles that I would move on to....and each one filled with highlighting and now almost unreadable notes. Have I lost any of that? We have to move on....for we cannot stay in our newborn state....but that which was wonderful....with a purpose....surely remains wonderful....and surely still has a purpose.
               Paul wrote some heavy stuff to these Ephesians some thirty years before....give or take. Some of the same believers must have still been at Ephesus when John penned Revelation. That's my interpretation on this anyway. So I read Ephesians.....slowly....meditating on every verse....every thought....every possibility....to see....if it is there....what first love they may have lost....and remain thankful to God for all of these warnings....and will....Lord willing....continue to contemplate them....and pray about them.

Note: I added this recommendation at the time....that the reader Google...’ligonier, audio, The Only Cure Is Forgiveness. If you are out of college....and about to get married....and right now live in guilt....you should hear this message!

Consider Your Ways

Preface:  How are you spending your time today? Do you not see this nation of ours as it is....and at times....if you let your guard down....do you not weep.....maybe even profusely. Take forty minutes and listen to a J. C. Ryle sermon....that great London preacher....who along with Charles Spurgeon and a few others....warned England in the latter half of the 19th century. Those who rejected Ryle and Spurgeon in their day....today wish they would not have....and it will be the same for those today who have no time for Christ.....maybe the contrived Christ of our weak churches....but not  the living Christ who does not gently ask of them some of their precious time....but commands them to listen and to heed. The sermon I have in mind I listened to this morning....just Google....J. C. Ryle....sermon....Eternity.   

I have increasingly over the years posted thoughts such as the above. If these are not judgments that we have been receiving....and you ignore or ridicule or take offense at how many of these warnings are addressed directly to the modern church....then maybe you are right....but on the other hand....if the Lord is near....and if we have indeed ignored fifty years of increasing warnings....and judgments....then you are in a very precarious position right now....church member or not.     

             Haggai.....his job.....should he accept it....and he did....(his words did not self-destruct after five seconds....but still speak to us today.....should we accept it)....was to reprimand the Jews who Cyrus had cleared the way for....to rebuild their temple....but they had not....instead they set about remodeling their own homes. 

             You see we thought it necessary to make America great again.....but the church was in a state of great disrepair....false prophets were everywhere.....and the shepherds did not watch over the sheep. God told the people through Haggai....twice in short order....and twice again later...."consider your ways." That appears to be what He is saying to us as He let us play around with Donald Trump for a while....showed Trump to be the mockery that he was and is....and yet we apparently want to do it again! It is not that we might individually work on or repair our own homes....or our government....but that here we are remodeling...and adding to....and even rebuilding our churches today....towards a seemingly greater outward glory.....whereas inside those doors....the glory has long departed....Ichabod....we may thus celebrate a structure....but not the God who is to dwell in that structure!

            "Now, therefore, thus saith the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways! You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways." (1:5,6,7)
  
              If God is telling us the same thing that He told told the Jews through Haggai....then we also are to begin rebuilding on the foundation that has already been laid. Well....the leaders in both the church and the state.....and also the remnant that was there....obeyed this Word of the LORD! John MacArthur wrote a book a few years ago.....and I highlighted it in these posts a few times.....and in it he very forcefully said that we were to.....rebuild this church. That book is Christ's Call To Reform The Church...Timeless Demands From The Lord To His People. Michael Horton was even more precise in his book....Christless Christianity. You can visit the websites of both of these men at....gty.org....and/or...whitehorseinn.org. The first chapter of Haggai ended with this....

              "And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel....and Joshua....and the spirit of all the remnant of the people....and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God." (1:14)

             So we go on to the second chapter of Haggai. Here is where the people are told to look at the temple being built.....and seeing how it is nothing like the former....to take heart.....and be strong....and continue.....for He the LORD is with us! We are not to fear....not the Democrats....nor our enemies....nor in my case this horrid man Trump. We are not to despise the day of small things....(Zechariah 4:10)....but that day must begin sometime!

            "For thus  says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land....and I will fill this house with glory. says the LORD of hosts." (1;6,7)  and...
            "Consider from this day onward....Since the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid-consider carefully." (2:18)

            The glory of the LORD was present in the tabernacle of Moses....and in the first temple.....but it departed because of the rebelliousness of the people....just as the glory that was once in the church of today in America....had also departed....Ichabod....because of what we had become and the directions that we chose to go. Haggai then gives a few short sermons....beginning with chapter 2 verse 11....describing how to the Jews of that day....and us today....we have fashioned a church in ways that do not please or honor the Lord. Haggai  informed them of what had happened....and why it happened....and pointed to the coming of the Messiah....where the glory of the LORD will once again fill His house! That....'pointing'.....is to us today....the same message.....the Messiah is coming again.....take heart.....for He has chosen us!
             Folks....this is how I read the book of Haggai. I'm not a shepherd....I'm just an old man shouting to the shepherds that their flocks are scattered all over the surrounding hills.....eating that which they should not....and unconcerned about wolves roaming those same hills. Read for yourself....pray for our pastors....for mercy extended upon them....is mercy extended upon us....and all this would be to the glory of the the LORD of hosts!

Trump And Biden......One Last Time

The following is from March 15, 2021          

          Yesterday I distributed the last of my....Trump or Biden....a False Dilemma....pens. The next pens....Lord willing....will have a Bible verse and message on it....so I wanted to revisit that Trump or Biden topic for at least this day....and I hope here to be very brief.
           It did not matter whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden won this last election because both are judgments on America from God.....and only the latest disastrous leaders that God has sat back and permitted us to choose.
           As for....however you would like to label this present manifestation of the Democrat Party....it is beyond disastrous as to any future for America. Whatever element it is in our society that has taken over this political party....it is nothing....zero....nada....related to the Democrat Party of which I grew up. Is it socialist? Certainly. Communist? Yes....at least as useful idiots.
           As for what used to be the Republican Party....but has of late been nothing but a Trump Party....it may not be socialist nor communist....and it may resemble more the America that once was....but it has been taken over by greed and pride and hate and a demagogue....and seriously disabled evangelicalism as to having any positive effect on America....lost its respect for human life....and has because of Trump....taken upon itself an authoritarianism that is every bit as dangerous as the tactics of the Left.
           Very quickly here.....for I've posted numerous times on this....we conservatives knew very little about Trump in 2015 and 2016. I read all the time and barely knew anything about him....except that he was arrogant....a clown of sorts.....who built towers and owned casinos....and golf courses....and had various other money making ventures.....(many of which went belly-up).....and of course a reality TV show of which I had never watched even a minute. 
           In early 2017 I could see the horror of what was developing.....and began to read about him.....I'm over eighty books now! (college students...how many books will you read for your major over four years....or maybe your masters....or even a PHD?)....(How many critiques have you read on Trump?) 
          About a year ago a friend.....a Trump supporter.....in a general discussion about him.....upon hearing just a smidgen of my contempt for what this man has done to us....how he has changed us.....asked of me...."Isn't there something good about Trump?" I can't remember how I answered that....but I know how I would answer it today...."No.....there is no compassion or empathy or wisdom or humility in him at all....and never has been." 
           I would ask you to think about just one thing that he said in the past.....you will remember it.....but probably laugh it off....."I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" How true that turned out to be! 

If God has us make it to elections in 2022....the House seats won't even be close....and possibly not even the Senate.....that is unless....unless Donald Trump is still motivating beyond belief the Left....and still beyond belief dividing and therefore destroying us. He was given the microphone tonight by one of his people on Fox News. I didn't read the transcript yet.....but wonder if in it he in some way said something like his normal....."this country that we love."? Folks....he doesn't love this country. If he did he would have taken himself out of the picture long ago. The one and only true and great love affair of his life.....has been with himself.          
        

Your Worship Service Tomorrow

 

Preface....the Lord’s Day afternoon....R, C. Sproul’s ‘ligonier.org’.....has a wonderful Daily Audio if you are interested.....titled....’Praying in Faith!’

The following post is from August of 2020....and I will leave it up for the day:  

               Well tomorrow you may or may not be choosing to attend worship service in person. Should you choose to stay home out of concern for yourself and others during this season of pandemic....but do not have the option of worshiping via streaming....I have an option that I'm sure would bless you. The sermons that I listen to during the week....usually as I'm walking....often automatically go on to the next sermon in line. I had previously listened to a Charles Spurgeon sermon....and a sermon followed titled Holiness by a contemporary of Spurgeon's....J. C. Ryle. Ryle....along with R. C. Sproul....are renown among Christians for their sermons and teachings on this subject. So just Google...J. C. Ryle....Holiness sermon. Just in case you might be thinking that I am being somewhat presumptuous in recommending to you a sermon on holiness....as if I'm trying to lead you to what I have found.....it is just the opposite....as a message such as this is at the same time a wonderful blessing.....and a hard look into a clear mirror.

Addendum: Today yet another wonderful surprise as a eulogy given by John Wesley on the recently departed to be with his Lord George Whitefield appeared....you can hear it by Googling....John Wesley...On The Death Of The Rev. George Whitefield. Oh that Methodist congregations today would en masse return to the sermons of their founder. Wesley at one point recounts some comments written by Whitefield on his first trip to the American colonies....as he wrote upon the long journey finally under way...."Blessed be God....we can now live very comfortably in the great cabin. We talk of little else but God and Christ....and scarce a word is heard among us but what was referenced as our fall in the first....and our new birth in the Second Adam." I heard this and wondered how it is that we today cannot talk....as did Whitefield and his fellow travelers....about little else but "God and Christ"....in fact we do not even often talk about God and Christ.....and even less about our new birth....we're more interested in our sports team....or complaining about wearing these stupid masks.! I'm sure this account on the life of George Whitefield will edify if you choose to listen to it.

Winter......And Winter Weather

                  Every Christian today should be very familiar with.....even saturated at times with....the Olivet Discourse....where Jesus expounded on the disciples' question...."Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Chapters 24 & 25 in Matthew....chapter 13 in Mark....and chapter 21 in Luke should by now be totally highlighted in our Bibles....with maybe notations etched in pencil or ink wherever there is space on the page.

                One of Jesus' remarks....this in verse 20 of chapter 24 of Matthew was...."But pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day".....for there would be a day coming when what we saw before us was so clearly evidence of fulfilled Old Testament prophesy....("whoso readeth, let him understand" is even added)....that our response would be to evacuate....and hopefully the weather didn't hinder that evacuation.
                This winter weather that we are experiencing right now all over America should at least cause us to ponder on how much we need power....if not just to keep the heat on in the winter. We have all just sat and prayed during some of the recent hurricanes.....and also as we saw the wild fires out of control out West....and as we at times over the past year....watched the news on the coronavirus deaths in hotspots as they developed in different places of America....at different times.
                 We have had....more accurately God has given us....over a century of "birth pangs" to meditate upon....(also mentioned in the Olivet Discourse)....but we don't....for it is similar to when Jeremiah gave this Word from the LORD beginning in Chapter 6:16...."Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls".....but as came next....."But they said, We will not walk therein".....and even this was followed by....."Also I have set watchmen over you saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said...We will not hearken." We should also be reading Jeremiah....as we may never have read before.