"Look Carefully Then How You Walk, Not As Unwise But As Wise, Making The Best Use Of The Time, Because The Days Are Evil."...(Eph. 5:16....ESV)

                Some men golf....some men fish.....some just have to be doing something with their hands.....most all of us have something that we do more for mental satisfaction than physical. Mine is that I need a set of weights around.....or a pulley machine of some kind....anything to stand over or in front of....and rhythmically set my breathing to whatever repetitions and however much weight I am using. That's just me....and has been since I got my Roberts 110 lb. set of weights for Christmas in 1963....of which I still have in my basement....and use them!
                We were gone for a week....a combination of vacation and a few other things....and I didn't get to pick up a dumbbell or pull on a pulley....and upon returning home I felt like my body had atrophied. It hadn't....it only felt that way....but this is only half the story....for I have not exercised in any way....whether it be here at home or at the fitness center.....in a few years now....without wireless headphones on....listening to some sermon by some great preacher of the past....or someone today who preaches like some great preacher of the past.
               On this particular trip I did not have the opportunity to listen to a single sermon....(other than streaming our church's Lord's Day sermon).....and I usually listen to at least a half dozen sermons a week....and when I returned home....I 'felt' spiritually depleted. I made a resolution on January 1 of 2020....to read God's Word every day of my life as long as I was conscious....and I have. Even after walking for nineteen miles in two days in our nation's capitol....I collapsed on the hotel bed and read God's Word.....highlighters in hand....but as the days wore on.....I missed the encouragement of Spurgeon's...and J. C. Ryle's sermons.
               Now here is why I bring this up in this post. While on this trip I did get to turn on Laura Ingraham for a few minutes......a couple of days.....and those three people on Fox in the morning....long enough to just shake my head and turn the television off....for these folks are lost today.....after giving up honest critical analysis and news over the four years of Trump....and abandoning fair and honest journalism for a politically motivated defense of this very troubled and dishonest man.
               As a typical conservative for forty years now.....and talk radio show addict for a long time....knowing how much time we evangelicals listen to or watch these shows....and how these broadcasts may have at one time been beneficial and informative to us.....they are today worse than nothing at all....a destructive force in that they occupy the same amount of our time.....but only bring out the worst in us....keeping us on edge.....fired up and ready to fight.....with anyone or anything......(masks will do)....knowing this....I pondered this morning....what the church might be like....(and therefore to a real extent the country)....if we listened to a Spurgeon as much as a Hannity....or a J. C. Ryle....even half as much....even a quarter as much....as a Tucker Carlson? 

Note: You might want to listen to this conference lecture by Steve Lawson.....particularly if you are in college....just Google....'Steve Lawson, Jonathan Edwards, The Best Use Of Your Time.