For two short periods of time....once in 1954 and the other in 1962....my mother and I lived with my aunt and uncle and my two older cousins....in their Glen Burnie, Baltimore home....this because of the relationship of my mother and father who separated for thirty years without getting divorced. My father died in 1979 on the day that Iranian students took over the United States embassy in Tehran....and he is buried in Arlington National Cemetary as a Purple Heart veteran of World War II.
Both of my cousins were born for the limelight....but especially the boy....who I loved....but he was a troublesome youth....who wound up on a Baltimore afternoon teen dance show....then became a disc jockey....then outgrew that and became a top 40 radio program director who went from city to city to turn poorly rated stations into popular stations. He was so successful that Time Magazine did a three-quarter page article on him back in 1974. It gets even more interesting....In early 1973 he came to Pittsburgh....where he was born....and took over a radio station called....KQV....and changed the name to....13Q. It rocketed from last to first. Oh....one more thing....one of the first things he did was fire some of the disc jockeys....one of which had the radio name of....Jeff Christie....his real name being....Rush Limbaugh. Rush would move on to a different type of radio show!
Rush was something else wasn't he? There was no one as good as he was on the radio....in his new format....and never will be. It was hard for even liberals who listened in not to like him. I have often wondered where he would be today on Donald Trump had he not died on February 17, 2021....six weeks after Trump's insurrection? It was a year earlier....February 4, 2020....that Rush was given that medal by Trump at the State of the Union address. I've posted on that day because as the coronavirus was about to change the whole world....(thirteen of my friends....that I know of....died in that pandemic)....and Trump took that microphone....in front of republican worshipers....and boasted of the greatness that was to come....God had other plans. Trump's speech resembled that of Nebuchadnezzar's on top of his palace...."Is this not the great Babylon that I have built?" As with the Babylonian king....one year later Trump was....mentally....as eating the grass on the White House ellipse. He had lost his mind as did Nebuchadnezzar....only Trump never got it back.
Rush gave a minimal proclamation of Christian belief....and we can be thankful for that. He was no liar....nor would he make statements such as he did if he didn't really mean them....but he also packaged Trump for us....and defended him up to the day that he died. So would Rush still be with him today? Probably. I have the same question about John MacArthur....but I also have the same nagging thought with both....that they would have seen by now who Trump really is.
So....all of the above....for this. It was recently recommended to me to watch a podcast of Joe Rogan....particularly his interview of a navy seal....Chadd Wright....and I did so....last night....while intermittently waking up with the world on my mind. It was the first time that I heard this new Rush Limbaugh on the scene.
My initial thoughts were that he is likable....although the language is ridiculous....and he is intelligent....but I don't see the wisdom that Rush had. The navy seal....a rabid Christian of about....if I remember correctly....thirteen years....described the framework of the gospel very well....but Rogan seemed more interested in the human mind finding out answers....on anything....than a depraved human mind....collapsing under the guilt of seeing that depravity.
Related to this....is the medium of the podcast vs the radio show. It seems as if the podcast aficionado already knows what he wants....whereas in talk radio....for over a half century in Rush's prime....anyone could be driving along....or making supper over the stove....and turn that dial.....to stumble across Rush. Essentially he was everywhere....as was Billy Graham on the television....and Christian bookstores in strip malls....the last two being mediums that were supply lines of the Christian faith....that were hard for the average person to avoid....but they are gone....along with the Rush Limbaugh's of national evangelical ministries.....Graham and Sproul and MacArthur and even Pat Robertson! We are on our own folks. That is what we wanted....and God obliged us. May He also have mercy upon us....and bring this remnant together....and clear away the static....that we might hear the voice of our Shephard....and follow willingly and joyfully!
