I'm convinced that we really have no idea how difficult the days ahead are going to be....and the pastors are not warning us one bit.....because they themselves don't know how difficult it will be. Celebrity versions of Christianity....just for one example....are becoming biblically unrecognizable. Folks....some of these people are writing 'Christian' books....and singing 'Christian' songs....and yakking up their faith all over the place....but when they are interviewed for this or that....it shows that they don't understand the faith at all! It's like their lives are nothing but contracts....where this is just the 'Christian' contract....and real believers are not spotting this! Consider the end-times ramifications for believers in this new Christianity....complete with fake revivals....and superstar false prophets! Brother....you think it can be frustrating at times now....well as the group BTO once expressed it....."B-b-b-baby, you ain't seen-n-n-nothin' yet" I don't know how more clearly God's Word could express it....."Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophesy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near." (Rev. 1:3) We are not preparing for these days. In fact we are afraid to even mention them. I doubt that persecuted Christians around the world have this problem. What is the title of that old Ruby And The Romantics song...."Our Day Will Come...."
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There are about thirty colleges and universities in Western Pennsylvania stretching from Erie to the Laurel Highlands and I've been on most of them at one time or another for one reason or another....always visiting the bookstore....walking the campus....and picking up as many editions of the college newspaper to get an idea of the flow of conversation on the campus. Twenty years ago I went back to one of these schools to do graduate work in Higher Education....simply because our son was soon to matriculate somewhere....and I wanted a better idea of the state of our higher education in America as he would make his decision. I posted the following back in May of 2015....and update it a little each year as I bring it back at commencement time year. Last years commencement was streamed due to Covid-19....and that is what I have here:
Once again another year has passed and I wasn't invited by any college or university to be their commencement speaker! So I dreamed a dream and in that dream a very fantastical thing happened. Joe Biden was to be the live streaming commencement speaker at Harvard University but a couple of his hair plugs fell out at the last minute and he refused to go on stage. The Ivy League school administrators were frantic in trying to find a replacement. When they heard my name....Special Dog....they thought I must be a rap singer and thus eminently qualified to a give a commencement speech.
Special Dog's Harvard Commencement Speech....Live Streaming....May 11, 2021
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It's a great honor to be invited to be your commencement speaker. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm five foot nine and three quarters inches tall. But enough of me. It's you I am here to talk about. You are no longer a student here. Do not try to use the gym anymore.
Our President told us last year that this is the greatest time to be young and American....that's one line you won't hear again. Everyone look up to the sky right now.....the first one that sees a drone spying on us gets a free Happy Meal. I hear some grumbling out there. Watch what you say for your iPhone is taping you. Just one more piece of bad news and then on to the good news. Well there's no good news but let me get this out of the way anyway. There are no 'safe spaces' in basic training.
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Today you are graduating from the sixteenth grade. Congratulations! This is that special day when everyone gets to write something obscene or against America on the top of their mortarboard. Most everyone here is 22 years old......which means that you only have four years of living in your parents basement before you must figure out what corporation you are going to be a slave to for the rest of your life. You will probably be about 77 years old when you retire. That's only a tad over a half century away.....about 1/120th of the history of the world since Adam was created. It'll go fast.
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I'm losing my audience.....maybe I better get serious. A little bit of trivia.....President John Kennedy would be 103 years old today if he were still alive.....104 in a few weeks....but his 46 year old face in the last year of his presidency is what we remember. I had the privilege of seeing him in person as Senator Kennedy and then presidential candidate Kennedy as his limousine passed by our Catholic grade school....and they herded us all out to wave to him.
I recently viewed an old interview with then Governor Ronald Reagan that was taped on June 5th of 1971. The interviewer asked Governor Reagan if he was going to run for president in 1972. Reagan replied...."No....Lord willing I'll complete my second term as governor." That would make two United States presidents....in a row....Carter and Reagan.....who could naturally use the phrase...."Lord willing." Abraham Lincoln also used it in his second inaugural address. Today we tell God what to do....'God....bless America'....it's more of a 'trick or treat' really but the evangelicals buy it and that's all that matters. Young people....we need a president today who thinks in these terms....and I propose that our national motto....'In God We Trust'.....of which we certainly do not.....be changed to....'Should The Lord Will It.'
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Every American....every American old enough of course....knows where they were and what they were doing when President Kennedy was shot. As for me....I was in my eighth grade homeroom when one of the Sisters came in crying with the news. We all then immediately went home.
Many of you remember that magazine sized book Four Days, The Historical Record Of The Death of President Kennedy. I think that just about everyone had it back in the months and years following that tragic day in November of 1963. In that book the editors reveal what were...."President Kennedy's last official words-the conclusion of the speech he was to have delivered in Dallas." John Kennedy was to give this speech but never did... for assassins (plural) ended his life.....SPOILER....it wasn't Oswald.
That speech never given by our 35th President concluded with these words....the last official words of President Kennedy...."The righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: 'Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain'." That Bible excerpt is the last half of the 1st verse of Psalm 127... from the King James Version, which begins with this "Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it." So the full verse is:
"Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was nominally religious as was I. He would have respected the Bible and believed those words but he could not have truly understood their significance, nor timeliness, nor even seen his own part in attempting to build a city (a country) without the LORD. The 60s were an absolute disaster, the effects of which nearly brought my own life to an end. They produced college professors for the next few decades who gave us many of our problems today.
President Trump will 'labor in vain' as he attempts to make America great again....unless we as a people see our own culpability in our troubles (past-present-and future) and seek God's forgiveness and mercy....and even then our hope would be wisdom and strength through the coming judgments....and not the suspension of those judgments.
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It was drizzling and a bit chilly as my wife and son and I walked Cambridge University back in the spring of 2001. I wanted to see where many of the Puritans were educated....one of them was John Harvard....and I wanted to see some of the places where scenes from the Academy Award winning Chariots Of Fire were filmed. The building that housed the White Horse Inn on the grounds of Cambridge was long gone but a small blue plaque hung in the nearest spot possible to that location. That inn was a 16th century English pub where students, Dons and travelers discussed the works of Martin Luther, and out of this discussion came a passion for the hearing of the Word of God which resulted in the English Reformation. Young people...find your own White Horse Inn....or....try whitehorseinn.org!
4 watching....my wife and three others
Surely somewhere in America on that bleak or snowy Saturday in early December 1941 a young man sat looking out of a restaurant window, or maybe a coffee shop, with a young lady at his side who was his new bride. They had the world at their fingertips as he was just awarded that treasured college diploma he worked so long and hard for, and she wore the wedding band she had dreamed about since they first met in grade school. They looked into each other's eyes with hardly a care in the world. Oh, the plans they had so much fun making.....a small cottage with a white picket fence that someday would keep little ones and maybe a puppy dog from straying as they play.
And then the morning came and as they walked into church the somber faces took their joy away for they had not heard the news from that group of islands where the sun shown year round and warm surf slapped the white beaches. America was in the war against evil that they had only given themselves minutes a day to reflect upon. The young bride knew immediately that their dreams would now be put on hold if they would ever come true. Surely the prayers of all present in that worship service were salted with tears.
Not every generation has its hopes interrupted as this generation did on December 7th, 1941 but your generation today may indeed be another one. Love is disappearing in the world....no....worse than that....it has been hijacked by greed....tortured by pride....and what is left is directed to ourselves, and we in America are paying dearly for our dalliances.
1 watching....I don't know who that is....my wife turned on the television
Do you sometimes feel a void of passion in your life...a meaninglessness that cannot be satisfied by the picture that you paint on your Facebook page? Well, a river of passion flows right by you! Cup your hands and drink from it. Let mercy and peace pass over your palate. A President's election will give but one night of elation but the certain expectation of the coronation of the King of Kings provides every morning and every evening with a ceaseless ardor that will make you forever thankful. If you happen to really see the trouble that we are in here in America....that vision is from God....and He will also give the balm....supply the strength and provide the wisdom to see the joy of redemption even in the darkest hours of this world....and to plan ahead with the full trust that if it be His will it will happen and if it not be His will you would not want it to happen. Here is the only true hope and change...... "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." 2 Corinthians 5:17
If only one graduate reads this post.....it's worth it!
"Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
