Seven Score And Ten Years Ago

        This post is only about a week old but I bring it to the front because of the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. We have been to the Gettysburg battlefield more times than I can remember and I've written about that time period in America's history quite a few times in these posts. In my short novel titled Isaac Crockett that you can read at www.isaaccrockett.blogspot.com I had a whole chapter where the title character visits the battlefield to reflect on the courage of the men on both sides of that battle and apply that to his own life. There is more than a few things I put in that novella that came from my own life. One of my favorite possessions is a battlefield artifact that I bought. It's a small plain metal cross with a broken loop that once attached it to a chain. It was picked up on Pickett's Charge in the early 1900s. I sometimes hold it in my hand and think about another believer in Christ who probably wore that as he ascended that hill.
        The Gettysburg Address is not in the timeline below for it was not the subject of the post but it stands out as one of the great presidential moments of our history, a history that is attacked today along with our entire heritage.

Day Of Prayer......and Humiliation

         The following is taken from the definitive work on General Stonewall Jackson, Stonewall Jackson, The Man, The Soldier, The Legend by James L. Robertson:

         "One military site Jackson did visit was the great battlefield at Waterloo. Years later Jackson discussed the pivotal engagement with his army physician, Dr. Hunter asked whose troops dispositions were the wisest, Napoleon's or Wellington's, Jackson leaped up from his stool and replied with much enthusiasm, 'Napoleon's, by all odds!' McGuire then asked, 'Well, why was he whipped then?' Jackson answered without hesitation  'I can only explain it by telling you that I think God intended him to stop right there.' "

         The following is taken from Abrahamlincolnonline.org:

        

Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day Washington, D.C. March 30, 1863 Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.

By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh. By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Timeline:

December of 1862.............The Union army suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
March 2, 1863...................The U. S. Senate introduces a Resolution for a National Day of Prayer.
March 3, 1863...................The Senate adopts the Resolution.
March 30, 1863.................President Lincoln signs it.
April 30, 1863...................National Day of Prayer and Humiliation is observed.
April 30 to May 6, 1863...The Union suffers a crushing defeat at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
May 10, 1863....................Stonewall Jackson dies from injuries sustained at Chancellorsville.
July 1-3, 1863...................The Union army is victorious at Gettysburg, the tide of the war is turned.

         The above Resolution was a legitimate plea for mercy from God and not a political ploy. The humility is obvious and should be humbling to us today if we would permit it. God will raise nations and He will cause them to fall....all according to His purposes. Whether it was Napoleon or Jackson, or America in past wars, or America today, God's will shall be done and all to his glory, and that 'will' may not be what we might expect. Another defeat for the Union began on the very day of prayer and humiliation. Many may have expected a victory. Stonewall Jackson accepted his fate as God's will, for that is all he would ever want! Even if we as a people would humble ourselves before God over our own "presumptuous sins' our immediate future may be bleak but we would know this for sure.... that His will shall be done, it shall be to His glory, and we will forever praise Him for that.

Choosing A College

        This is my Lord's Day offering.


         My son is 27 years old now. He graduated from high school in 2004 and it was in his junior year that he, I should say we, started getting serious about choosing a college. I have had friends tell me that they gave their son or daughter complete freedom in choosing the school they would go to. I was a little bit different. To begin with I enrolled in a masters degree program in Higher Education in no small part to learn more about our colleges and universities and their history in order to have a more valuable input in helping our son choose a school. I was going to learn all that I could to give him the best advice that I could before he would make that very important decision.
         I had all the reference books and used them to research everything about the schools and then we started on the campus visits. I'll just write about one here. There is a prestigious college down south that is known to be very conservative. So we got in the car and travelled. My son wasn't exactly thrilled with this visit for it is an all all-boys school. So it wasn't a good start and then I got a speeding ticket about two miles from the campus. Reaching that campus after a long tedious drive, a young man took us on a tour and the first stop we made was the dormitories. I causally asked him what the policy was for girls in the room, fully expecting him to say something like...'Oh girls are not allowed in the rooms." He answered me with "Three days."  Three days...hmmm...what does that mean? He answered my thought..."Girls are only allowed to stay for three days....anything more than that would be considered a residence!" My son and I looked at each other. That was the end of that but we finished the tour anyway and came home visiting two other schools on the way. We were fortunate that at the end of this college search we both loved the same school. He matriculated there and graduated two years before his future wife.
         But this post isn't a trip down memory lane for there is a message that I'd like to give here, primarily to the parent, on searching for a college for their son or daughter.  What are the churches like near the college being considered? What good would it be to have four years at even a solid educational institution without a Christ preaching pulpit for your son or daughter to sit before every Lord's Day? Four years is a long time to go without a good church, particularly in what is often the radically secularized environment of higher education. Is it any wonder that statistics show that many young people fall away from faith in college? There will indeed be churches near every college and university but finding one that consistently preaches Christ therefore consistently preaches His cross is very hard and often impossible to do!
         And to the student reading this... the nearness of the church, the friendliness of the congregation, the music, the comfort....what good are any of these things if Christ and His cross are not preached? What good is the prestige of the diploma if you have lost even the discernment you came to college with? What good are friends next to you in the pew if all of you become spiritually malnourished due to a touchy-feely church where preaching our Savior's blood shed on Calvary is considered too morbid for church growth? The key to your education begins on the Lord's Day! Seek a pastor who consistently preaches Christ and run to that worship, then trust Christ to protect you and strengthen you on the other six days and provide you with the discernment necessary to navigate the shoals that are all around the college student of today and to keep faith while a tempest of monumental proportions is rocking our ship of state and wreaking havoc on a populace with little sailing experience and less desire to learn.
       
 

Purge Of The Generals........Redux

        
         I want to preface the following post that I bring back often titled America...Free.....Free Fallin' with a quote taken from an article on WorldNetDaily titled Obama 'Gutting' Military By Purging Generals. The quote is from retired Army General Paul E. Vallely....."Obama is intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged." Yes, General Vallely has been a critic of Barack Obama but he is a respected military analyst who co-authored with Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror. Quoting the article itself by F. Michael Maloof..."President Obama this year alone has fired some nine generals and flag officers, on top of at least four similar dismissals during his first term, suggesting that a purge may be the real reason behind the removals, which are being described as cases of personal misbehavior."
          I remember a few of those firings and this has concerned me for quite a while now as it obviously has others.  I'm not insinuating that the new generals and fleet officers are involved in any conspiracy, rather that stronger generals are problematic to Barack Obama's plans for our military and our foreign policy. It has been my contention that our White House is occupied by a Manchurian President, who was prepared by those with an ideology that seeks to fundamentally change America. Using Barack Obama's own words here five days prior to his first election victory..."We are five days away form fundamentally transforming the United States of America." Five days should have been enough for a legitimate media to question this statement. Earlier in that year of 2008 Michele Obama was quoted as saying..."We are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place as a nation." They told us what they intended to do but we, as a people, either misinterpreted their statements or totally ignored them.

To read the full article go to www.wnd.com

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         Events with mind-numbing potential consequences are happening so fast in this world that it is time, maybe long past time, that Americans at least consider that their lives may be about to change....abruptly! America, the long established leader of the free world, is four and a half years into a suicide attempt and three and a half years away from any hope of even partial recover if that suicide is not a fait accompli.  I bring the following post back often. America's descent into the abyss has continued since it was first written. May God open our eyes to that descent that we might call out to Him, for the forces arraigned against the United States at this time, along with the gross ineptitude of this government that was once was a nation to be reckoned with, and coinciding with denials of the Gospel and of God's judgment upon an unbelieving world by whole 'Christian' denominations and institutions, is more than enough reason to literally fall on our knees and cry out for His mercy.

America....Free....Free Fallin'

 Dawn breaks and pull by pull the flag rises until its stars and stripes blend into the red sky. The 21st century America cold front collides with the warm heritage of American liberty. Dark clouds form above the eagle perched atop the pole and the flag snaps as the winds begin another day of adding to the tatters and waiting for the rain that month by month fades the blue and red hues that Americans have savored as the taste of freedom for so long.
             An icy chill settles in the bones of the one raising the flag for he knows that its stars and stripes will be indiscernible before long. He looks down to see if the cracks in the foundation supporting the pole have widened from the tremors that increasingly shake America...they have. He steps back, standing as erect as he can under the burden of seeing his nation collapse, and salutes; a tear forming as he knows that he may be the last to perform this duty. His mind wanders from, first... the drum and piper escorting the newly created flag, to the inspiration for Francis Scott Key's poem, to the charging Union soldier picking up the banner dropped by a fallen comrade in arms, to the lifting of the flagpole on Mt. Suribachi, to the camo flag on the fatigues of the grunt in Vietnam, to the brilliant contrast of red, white and blue with the gray mountain of fallen steel, brick and mortar of the World Trade Center, to the lone flag now raised in the Green Zone of Baghdad.
          In only a few hours cheers and shouts will be heard off in the distance, not for returning heroes, not as a President passes by, not as a war ends in victory but for the beginning of a football game. The Star Spangled Banner will play and be sung by the latest celebrity seeking a national spotlight but not a word of its lyrics will resonate with the power it had since Fort McHenry. We are not as the Roman Empire falling, we are as the Roman Empire beginning whose gods are numerous, whose Caesars consolidate powers given by a populace that only wants another day at the Coliseum. God's hand is being lifted and the exhilaration of choosing our own destiny emboldens us to stare into the eyes of Caesar and say not, "Give me liberty or give me death" but "Give me liberty to choose my own death." All the while the remaining Christians gather in their catacombs wondering if God's mercies on America are over; imploring of Him one more time for America to be a beacon to the nations, a people that not only openly proclaim Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind but evidence the beneficence, mercy, majesty, power and glory of Him who created the universe and without whom not one molecule would continue to exist.
         It was a marvel and a wonder while it existed in its original form....these United States of America, but now they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd (Zech 10:2.) They are a people once different as night and day in their habits and their speech that bonded together as a new entity...Americans, freed from the tyranny of kings, freed from serfdom and most importantly freed from the lie that man is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul, but that freedom, once defended, is now merely petted in the lap of luxury, "Free" as the famous rocker penned..."Free Fallin'." The American Creed, never spoken but always evident, is now but a liberal screed against God, against tradition, and against history itself.
          The sun, obscured throughout the day by clouds, sets in the West. The rain that would normally give life to the fields, runs off of the frozen, barren and lifeless ground. The flag is lowered and gently folded into the shape of a tri-cornered hat, one of the last vestiges that remain of the fight for independence. No Taps is heard, only the music of the night coming from wherever the revelers gather after the game. The winds die down, no longer needed, for the flag has been taken down, while angels sent by God prepare to blow their trumpets.

What Are Republicans To Do

         Barack Obama was elected, in part, because many people naively and self-aggrandizingly thought that electing an African-American as president would assuage the guilt of racial discrimination in America. These voters also believed the rhetoric of the campaign; that being that Barack Obama was a man of peace, a man who cared for the welfare of all Americans, a man who would bring hope for a secure future. All of these preconceptions have come crashing down. He is not what many perceived him to be and unfortunately is exactly what others knew him to be, but even I who opposed his ideology from the beginning could take heart at first in the faces of many Black Americans who had a special pride in their president and I still hope for the day when we can all do that.   
         Under any kind of normal conditions impeachment proceedings would have long ago started for Barack Hussein Obama. If a Republican were president it would have...and I would have supported it! But these are far from normal times. What is truly amazing is that our media has not been clamoring for impeachment. Even in this polar political climate I would think that many would have said enough is enough. I have written on this many times in these posts of almost five years. Whether it be the abuse of executive orders, or circumventing our Constitution through csars, or delinquency on foreign affairs bordering on outright treason, or insurmountable debt accrued through dubious bailouts and stimulus, or a backdoor strong-armed passing of Obamacare where the true motivation is total control of  our lives, or encroachment of government in corporations such as the global warming bunk attempting to bankrupt utilities where the true motivation is a redistribution of wealth from America to more enlightened nations, or the abuses of our Justice Department, or the attempted cover-up on the investigations into Benghazi, or the deception behind Fast and Furious..... there is more than enough evidence to support proceedings.
          In reality, actually impeaching this president would be more than difficult. Harry Reid holds enough power in this area to throw a monkey wrench in any Senate trial. A good read on this would be Catching Our Flag: Behind The Scenes of a Presidential Impeachment by James Rogan. He was one of 13 House Managers in the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton and is now a Judge of the Superior Court of California. There are more problems with impeachment. Our enemies are already licking their lips and know that their window of opportunity with Barack Obama is now three years. Impeachment might exacerbate their decisions. Obama, should he realize that he might be impeached, conceivably could implement a doomsday scenario and claim to be temporarily taking full control of the government.....to preserve the government! Even with these scenarios informal impeachment proceedings should begin with intensity and patience so that they can formally begin when and if Barack Obama passes a line that...hopefully...even Democrats could no longer acquiesce to.
         As for the turmoil in the Republican Party, my advice has been and continues to be a stalwart defense of our Constitution by supporting candidates who are outraged as we are by the incompetent leadership, broken promises and now full-fledged attacks by Establishment Republicans upon those who actually see the carnage to our Constitution and immanent disasters that face us brought on by not only Progressives of the Clinton administration and Marxists in the current administration but what has proven to be hopelessly flawed strategies of a political class of Republicans who even if they would regain control of our Senate and Executive Branch would have compromised, as they are now very clearly proving, the principles that originally put most of them into office.
          Work for men and women of integrity in the Congress, work to put the political class out to pasture, nominate a true conservative who will be running against an Establishment candidate who will lie through his teeth as to conservative principles, support and win with a third Party candidate should we fail in the nomination process, and all the while hold in abeyance the current occupant of the White House, and trust that the American people will wholeheartedly agree. All of this is under the condition that God even permits us to continue as a Republic for we have gone beyond presumption that he will bless us and now find excuses to openly, egregiously and even pridefully thwart and even mock His law, all in the name of political pragmatism which is a fool's errand for it thinks that it can survive these imminent disasters that threaten us without God's enabling, sustenance in times of trouble and mercy for current and past abuses.

The Star-Spangled Banner............Redux

The Star-Spangled Banner

         I've researched this time and again and cannot come up with the particular person. It wasn't too long after the terrorism of 9/11, maybe a year, that a famous American rock star returned from touring in Europe. As he travelled around the United States after being out of the country for a while he was amazed at how many American flags were being flown in front of individual homes. I cannot remember his exact quote but in essence, seeing so many flags flown.....seeing such evidence of nationalism....of love of country....well, it made him ill! I think that his remark made me ill, for I may not remember the quote verbatim but I have never forgotten his admittance of revulsion at seeing the Stars And Stripes flown from so many homes!
         Let me set the scene for you that I experienced tonight. The setting was a church....in a fairly conservative community...a community where even today many American flags are flown on the front porches of people's homes.....mine being one of them.  It was a benefit where classical music artists, both professional and students of the genre, donated their time and extraordinary talents with the proceeds in the form of donations going to a very good cause. Just about all of the people were seated and chatting with neighbors and friends who sat around them. Two very young, pretty and talented girls set the ambiance for such an event by playing their violins very softly. So softly that the music was barely discernible over the conversations and laughter.
         They played one piece after another and included in this was the Star-Spangled Banner. One by one the people in the audience turned to the two young violinists and stood up until all in attendance were standing. The girls must have thought that the main concert was beginning and they stopped playing. The audience laughed at this to ease the violinist's embarrassment and someone must have told the girls to begin playing again. They did and we softly sang along... the words penned by Francis Scott Key during another period when our nation was under attack. It was an emotional moment for me, a stark change of tempo and attentiveness, so natural, yet so almost out of place today depending on the venue, an audience picking up on the faint notes of our national anthem and immediately standing. It was a beautiful moment really, and an encouraging one!

 

More Food Sir?

         OK....I'm going to conclude this three-post series to college students with a piece of very practical advice. You are a little bit more pensive than most of the other students around you. At least it appears that way for they always seem to be talking sports or girls (boys) while you are often nagged by doubts that life is not as carefree as that. Some of you were raised in church. You're not angry at it for all the people were loving but you are sure that there must be more to the Christian Faith. You want it to be so and time and again you tried to renew the feelings you once had years earlier. Or you may not have been raised in a Christian or even religious home but on a very few occasions, maybe it was in a conversation or over something you read about or heard, you felt a jolt to your system as if it were a jolt from God. Maybe it was a sudden consciousness of your own sin against a holy God or maybe it was intellectual where some particular thought all of a sudden made sense about the Bible and faith in God but it disappeared quickly.
        I've been where you are on a few occasions in my youth and mentioned some of them in the course of this blog of five years, but I would like to mention two of them here. The first was in 1982. God was moving mightily in my heart but I had little to no knowledge to make sense of things or to guide me. I needed help. So I called a television ministry and simply asked if they knew of a church in my area where I might hear about this born again thing. They recommended a church and my wife and I attended there for about ten years and I'm very thankful for that. By then I was reading older Christian books like it was going out of style, which by the way I think that it is, and I saw some fairly serious errors in today's modern theology of which that church was a part. I was like Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist who had the audacity to take his bowl up and plead....Please Sir, may I have more food? I needed help again and again I made a phone call to a minister that I heard on the radio. Again I was directed to a church in my area. I wasn't afraid to ask for help and that's where I hope that you are today.
         I can't recommend a church to you for obvious reasons... I don't know you or where you live, but I can do this. I can recommend a resource that if you give it a chance and give it time you will find answers and you will find people that you can call for further help. It's a 24/7 internet/radio ministry. It has numerous teachers on it and all of them are sound in their doctrine. You can tune in any time of the day or night...any day of the week. How easy is that? You can listen to it online or get an app for your iPhone or iPad. The url is www.refnet.fm. I'll be praying that some who found their way to this rather odd blog of mine, which really isn't even a blog, will make the effort and find these teachers!

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John Kennedy's "last official words" never delivered

         The following are two posts. The first from this past Spring and the second from almost three years ago. I hope to be on a university campus a few hours after posting these. Unless God's Spirit works mightily in the hearts and minds of our youth... we as a nation, have little hope to turn back those who by denying our heritage and distorting our past.... destroy our discernment in charting our future. It was not chance that President John Kennedy's last official words, which you will read about below, were never delivered, for we would not have believed them nor heeded them and our nation fifty years later is one of leaderless chaos, tottering on a precipice, oblivious to the warnings posted all around.

The Shortest Commencement Speech Ever!

     Well the lists are out on the "top" college and university commencement speakers and once again just about all of those speakers are die-hard liberals. I was in attendance of a graduation commencement a week ago Friday and the message from the speaker was, in essence, encouragement to seek employment with the United Nations if you really wanted to be on the forefront of service to peoples of the world.
     Once again, another year has passed and I wasn't invited by anyone 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 commencement speaker at the University of Pennsylvania (which he is to be) 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 give a commencement speech.......then I woke up. So I sat down  and penned the speech that I would have given had I in fact been invited as a commencement speaker...anywhere, and here it is.......ahem!

      Well this is it!  Four years....a hundred thousand dollars in debt.....and all you got is a piece of parchment and a t-shirt saying "I survived four years of American higher education." I just want to say one word to you. Just one word....plastics!  Actually that's a quote, one of the top 100 film quotes by the way, from the 1969 movie The Graduate.
      I'll start my real advice with a little history...the "last official words" of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy!  The magazine sized book published in 1964 that most everyone has seen... Four Days, The Historical Record Of The Death of President Kennedy, described it this way, "These were President Kennedy's last official words-the conclusion of the speech he was to have delivered in Dallas."  That speech ended with these words, "...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 I pass these words on to you in this commencement speech as encouragement, President Kennedy's last official words, for they are the only truly reliable words that I will speak: 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!

     Now you will be going out trying to find a job...maybe you already have one lined up.....please remember...Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

      You finally have that degree....it will be worthless if you forget.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

      Whatever your degree is in.....it must now be built upon this....Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

      You might already have a position at the biggest law firm in New York City.....God's Word reminds you.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!

      You're already an expert at investing and have great plans for your portfolio.....is this the title of that portfolio...Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it?

      You're patient and willing to work your way up....good traits, but keep in mind...Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

      You just might want to work to build peace....but remember this.... Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.

      You might want to protect the environment .....if not for the glory of God your efforts will be in vain, for.... Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain!

      This may be the shortest commencement speech ever given but one does not have to be a PHD, or a celebrity, a statesman, general or financial wizard to relay God's wisdom to graduates......

"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."

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 This is my Lord's Day offering...a post from October of 2009. I wanted to keep on the topic of college. I'll leave it up for only a day.


         I'm an incurable pack rat. My wife came up to me yesterday with a gray disk, about the size of a silver dollar and wanted to know if I knew what it was. It was slightly beveled and had little holes throughout. I had no idea what it was and she was about to throw it away. What! Wait a second. If we throw this out, there will be a day, when I need a disk about the size of a silver dollar, slightly beveled with little holes throughout. She'll never learn. Just throw the thing out and don't ask me about it.
          I have in my hands, well actually I'm typing but I have here in front of me a book that I bought from the National Record Mart in the winter of 1973. Its title is Reach Out, The Living New Testament (illustrated.) It was published by Tyndale and I paid $2.95 for it. It has just a little bit of commentary in it and was aimed at young adults. I showed up at church services in Vietnam when in a solemn and introspective mood but the thought of church never entered my mind during my last 7 months at Fort Bragg . I started at Pitt in January of 1973. It was a heady time. I read constantly, occasionally even textbooks from classes that I was supposed to be reading. I would take my latest book into the college bar and my friends and I would discuss philosophy or some other subject that we were interested in, until I could no longer pronounce my words. That's when my genius really came out.
         I remember one night particularly well. We were discussing The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. Here was a UCLA anthropology grad student taking lessons from a Yaqui Indian shaman on how peyote was instrumental to understanding the mysteries of life. We were absorbed in this while unaware that a couple of quarts of Budweiser did the same thing. In between this nonsense I would occasionally show up at St. Paul's Cathedral. It would be almost a decade before God opened my eyes and I could see the marvel of the gospel and the majesty of His Son, but I had a taste in 1973.
          Sometimes I open this book up and press the pages to my face, smelling them and imagining how that word Jesus would thrill me before I even understood. I'll read a few verses from this paraphrased translation, for it not a true translation, and be transported back for only a moment. And only a moment is what I would want for I was lost. I was in love with me and only the grace of God kept me from facing Him until a time when He would use the words of the Bible as a mirror where I would see only corruption. There are so many mysteries that will be explained to us when this life is done but none to me as impenetrable as why God opened my eyes. If you are firm in your decision to reject God, and you want a good excuse to bolster your case, just think of me. If God would redeem me, then there is no fairness in the world. And don't listen to the voice on the other shoulder that says If God would forgive me, then there is hope for you also. And whatever you do, don't open His book!

Shrinking Sidelines!

          It amazes me, and then it doesn't...two almost entirely different peoples within America, one... flawed certainly but traditional.....patriotic...God-fearing; the other moribund as to discernment.... progressive....metropolitan....international....almost anti-American as American has always been known, and God-rejecting, unless one fashions a god as one might attractively depict themselves with liberality on their Facebook page. And yet examples of two opposite peoples within a nation litter recorded history....... Christian pastors may someday soon have to either choose between proclaiming a government sponsored god or preaching the Gospel in the open fields. Where do you stand?

This from December of 2011:

    How are we to explain it? At one moment the people were laying palm branches before the approaching colt that carried Jesus into Jerusalem, shouting "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," and only a few days later they shouted "Crucify, crucify him!" Or were they the same people? Luke describes the first as his "disciples," and the second as the "chief priests, rulers and the people." Is this not the dichotomy of the people of this world from that day to the present? I remember watching an awards ceremony (probably the Tonys) on television in the mid-eighties where there were two musical performances, one after the other, that effected me enough to recall and relate it many times since. My memory on the specifics is not that clear but I do remember a gospel themed performance from a large choir. Certainly it must have been related to one of the nominees. It was a powerful ensemble performance and the audience was enthusiastic in its response. Then came the second performance. What I remember about it was the very wild theme as if from a Mardi Gras or a Brazilian festival. Again, the power of the music was displayed and the audience responded in kind. I felt that I had witnessed a spiritual battle right before me on the television screen. It astounded me that two themes of such opposite polarity where presented next to each other. Certainly, some cheered only for the gospel ensemble, others cheered only for the wild festival-like performance, while still others cheered for both, oblivious to the clash of messages. Who may have won that battle...I don't know, but it became etched in my own mind. Not all Christians are consumed with passion for knowing Christ, nor awestruck by the majesty and radiance of the Risen Lord nor do they cling to His Word as more valuable than gold and more precious than pearls, but many do. Not all of those that are lost and unredeemed grit their teeth in hate at the mere mention of Jesus Christ, but some do, while the lukewarm in the middle are often confused as to what all the fuss is about. The Israel of the Old Testament either sang praises and danced to its God or they killed the prophets sent by Him. Even today, we are conflicted not only between nations, but within nations, even at times within ourselves. There is no safety in trying to avoid the battle between God and those who oppose Him. The only safety is in shouting salvation and glory and power belong to our God!... to the only righteous king... and the only true God!

Stonewall Jackson.........Stonewall DeMint

          A few days ago a friend asked me why I haven't been saying too much about the government shutdown. My response was that the main problem we faced at that time was the establishment class of the Republican Party. The past few days proved out that thought. Just yesterday I was in the car and turned on the Mark Levin Show. Mark was interviewing Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson who assumed office in 2011 in no small part due to Tea Party endorsements. It was somewhat of a contentious interview because of Senator Johnson's recent votes on the attempt to defund Obamacare. At one point the Senator referred to the questioning as an inquisition. I wondered how it was that he considered himself above critical questioning. In July of 2010 Ron Johnson was endorsed for the Senate by Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund. When those Republican challengers won their elections Jim DeMint sent a letter to them warning them the establishment elite in the Senate would try to bring them under their control. The pressures put on Senators by the godlike party leadership must really be intense. Personally, I don't know if we can make it to the 2014 elections without national catastrophes. We have no leadership in this nation to speak of. Having long since rejected God, He has left us to our own devices. The following post is from earlier this summer:

Press On

        This past Saturday my wife and I had a nice afternoon at a county fair in Ohio and on the way home I put in the CD of the month from R. C. Sproul's Ligonier Ministry. He was telling of the marvel of raising children which included a little story of one time when he was carrying his grandson around his living room and naming objects on the wall and having the little boy repeat the words. He laughed as he told this and I certainly laughed along with him but for a different reason as he pointed to a picture on the wall and said very slowly Stone...wall...Jack...son. I looked at my wife.... finally vindicated! I was not the only person to have a painting of Stonewall Jackson on the wall!  You would have to know a little bit about this great general and modest, humble and dedicated Christian to know where I'm coming from. If you can't get past the confederate aspect of this you may indeed not understand. Let me give you one small anecdote that characterized his entire life:
         Mrs. Jackson tells the story. The first battle of Manassas or Bull Run was over and the people of Lexington, Virginia were anxious for news. The mail came in and the people all gathered around to hear the facts. A Letter was handed to the Rev. Dr. White who "immediately recognized the superscription of his deacon soldier and explained to the eager and expectant group around him...'Now we shall know all the facts'." He began to read out loud, "My dear pastor, in my tent last night, after a fatiguing day's service, I remembered that I had failed to send you my contribution for our colored Sunday-school. Enclosed you will find my check for that, object, which please acknowledge at your earliest convenience, and oblige yours faithfully, T. J. Jackson." Around my neck as I write is a pendent and on the reverse side are the words...Press On. I had that made up because those were the words that Jackson would call out to his men...infantry...who were sometimes called his...foot cavalry...for they moved steady, sure, and fast. But Stonewall Jackson is not the topic of this post, not directly anyway.
         The Republican Establishment has numerous generals but no Jacksons...no Lees...no Chamberlains....no Grants... no MacArthurs and no Pattons!   Those few true leaders out there oppose the current Republican leadership that is lackadaisical, insincere and impotent. I'm reminded of another anecdote as I write, this time about Oliver Cromwell. I've never seen this in print, only in the film Cromwell that starred Richard Harris and Alec Guinness. Lord Manchester led the Parliamentary forces early in the English Civil War. The film depicts him as indecisive and timid with Cromwell extremely unhappy with the lack of resolve, vigor and determination. Cromwell confronts Manchester with words that are probably different than what I remember but the message was the same "Manchester, we are going to defeat the king's army even if we have to go through you first!"
         We have our Jacksons and our Cromwells. Jim DeMint is one, Rand Paul another, Ted Cruz another, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, are two of many more.  Should the Lord have mercy upon America and extend our republic for a time, we are going to have to go through the establishment elites. What we will probably find is that they will take trick after trick from the Democrat's playbook. I don't expect honesty, rather pure power politics. They have proven themselves self-serving, grossly indecisive, all too often condescending to us and everything but prostrating themselves before those they claim to vigorously oppose. Their arguments will be persuasive to many for they are tried and appear true, having been given to us so many times through so many elections.
         These are not mere problems that we face in America. If they were this would not necessarily be the path that we have to go; and this path also will lead to certain defeat if we think that we can do it without first seeking God's mercy, fortitude and guidance. That is the way it has always been. George Washington knew it to be true as did Abraham Lincoln. The question to be answered is...do we?

Highly recommended:
Gods And Generals (film)
Stonewall Jackson, The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, by James L. Robertson Jr.
Cromwell (film)

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...and this post from a few weeks ago:

Usually, when I go four or five days without a new post it's because I have been down with something and such was the case again this time. There was a blessing though, as there also usually is, in that I could just lay there and listen to most of Senator Ted Cruz's 21 hour and 19 minute speech, or filibuster if you will, to Senate seats...and to America. It was not only American history being written, it was one of the great oratorical stands in our history, a history with the likes of Patrick Henry. I don't know if we have time to right this ship of state. If I were to guess it would be that we do not, that our presumption upon God's longsuffering with our rebellion has long since reached its limit, for His judgments upon us have already started, the greatest being that more often than not we cannot even distinguish good from evil nor right from wrong let alone choose between the two.
          If....God will have mercy upon us, then the last few days may have been a beginning in the political arena, for a great statesman, and a few other stalwarts,  have emerged out of a cesspool of ethical and intellectual delinquency...the United States Senate. If God's hand is indeed stayed then you may one day proudly look back upon what our House of Representatives and handful of Senators are attempting and say something such as "I remember those days....I was there!" To those of you outside of the United States, and there are quite a few who visit this blog, you are witnessing somewhat of a second American revolution, the rebels being.... freedom and liberty loving patriots with a reverential fear of Almighty God, needing only the heat of the cauldron turned up for the dross of our past sins to rise to the top leaving us dripping in the sweat of pure humility while seeking mercy and forgiveness. Whether we rise or fall, the hold of the Republican Establishment Class is broken and though when all is said and done that they may win here, there will someday be, should God will it, another crossing of the Delaware, and they and their political consultant class of mercenaries will lose that hold that stifles participation in our republic and fails to defend or even warn.
         Lastly, the censure, ridicule and recriminations towards Senator Cruz continue but the spell is broken. The more that they lambast good men and women, the louder and clearer they tell Americans that though they failed time and again over decades, though they long ago gave up trying, though they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage.... that they can cut the legs out from men like Ted Cruz but will find that he still towers over them on his knees and they can attempt to demoralize us but will find that a....plain, russet-coated Captain will not bow before the rostrum of elitism. I bring this older post back to explain the previous sentence:
        


plain, russet-coated Captains........Redux!

       .......A much more likely scenario for myself and others would be to work for principled true Republican conservatives for Congress and a third party candidate for the White House.  This pitched battle that is just commencing between Conservatives and Royalists is not a chance encounter. It has been brewing for many years and the Republican Establishment, or Royalists as I like to call them, have taken advantage of us, their base, time after time. They launched a volley this week announcing that 100 Republican donors, mostly gentlemen I presume, signed on to their cause. I gave this quote by Oliver Cromwell before but it seems extraordinarily apropos today: "I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else." Here is the situation. As it stands now we could not win the presidency with a third party candidate but if America does not experience a reformation and a great awakening... then even winning both houses and the Oval Office would do nothing to stop the hemorrhaging. On the other hand should Americans return to the God who gave them their very existence, all the money in the king's purse could not help Karl Rove. Should God will it, the numbers will be there in abundance, both in 2014 and 2016! That is, should He will it that we even make it that far as a nation unscathed and unbroken.
   

Yelling "Free Will" At A Lynyrd Skynyrd Concert

        
      The following is my Lord's Day offering originally posted in July of 2010:

         Saturday's Wall Street Journal highlighted an article by Jane Goodall on her life among the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. It was touching, but there was one glaring error as the anthropologist looked upon these wonderful creatures as being our common ancestors from six million years ago whereas our ancestors were, one created man and one created woman, only six thousand years ago. This creation... us... has a free will. Martin Luther wrote a book and Johnathon Edwards, two hundred years later, wrote another with titles that seem, at first glance, to be saying something opposite of each other but Luther's Bondage Of The Will proclaims the same thing that Edward's Freedom Of The Will does.
          German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer concentrated on man's will. To him it was when one man's will did not coincide with another man's will that suffering ensued. Desire was the problem and denial the answer. Schopenauer claimed to be an atheist and talked often as would a Buddhist. I cut out a Bizarro comic that might address this, an Eastern monk kneels before his teacher and says what do you do when you have freed yourself of all desire except the desire to be free from desire. Third Reich filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's historic work Triumph Of The Will deifies the will and the object of it, and the consequences of that are in our history books.
         When a Christian enters the debate a genuine conversation on free will may come up, and the challenges pour in over the Christian's claim that a free will does exist but so does a fallen nature that determines what that free will chooses. Chief among these arguments might be If such is the case...why bother to try at all and If such is the case then God is unjust. I think that you have to step back a little bit and consider this, Are you a person...do you exist? Is it a silly question? No, for if you acknowledge that you are an individual...and also that God exists...there has to be either a relationship, or a broken relationship. Who determines that relationship, the creature or the Creator? Well, if it's the Creator, He's telling you that you are the culprit but He has provided a way. One might then say hold on, I'm not the culprit! If you deny culpability...how can you then complain about the method God has designed for forgiveness, for you have rejected his premise to begin with? Why do you barter over the cost of a car that you have no intention of buying? Address the first issue and you will be surprised how little challenge there is to the second!
         If you truly had an unimpinged free will and consequently have no problem with rejecting the God that does exist, would it not have been better to have had a fallen free will and forced to depend, not on an intellectual decision of perceived truths or your own righteousness, but on a merciful Savior who has already promised forgiveness for coming to Him in sorrow for your sins and faith alone in His ability to redeem you?
         So to recap, if you do not have the ability to have faith in God without His intervention (free will and a fallen nature) then God is unjust; but if you do have the free will yet freely reject Him, He is not unjust? When God commands everyone to believe in His Son and one refuses to, it is not the evidence of a choice as much as it is the evidence of a fallen nature! Man already has a choice but also a fallen nature so to demand of God a choice is not necessary, but a plea for forgiveness from sins emanating from that fallen nature is never turned down! It is not one's choice to seek forgiveness even though one does. It was God's choice to intervene! Is He to be called unjust for this....for overcoming your fallen nature through the power of His Holy Spirit?
         Would you really rather to have not existed at all? There is an infinitesimal number of people.....who could have been.... but were never created therefore never existed. The ratio of created souls to souls never created would also be infinitesimal. Would God not then have to be infinitesimally fair and just to have created only those He has? Think of the innumerable multitudes that He never had to offer mercy, innumerable multitudes that would have rejected Him! Or is the injustice in that He has created you knowing you would have a fallen nature? But had He not created you, you could not call Him unjust for there would be no you. If just one soul is condemned, would that not, to some, be enough for a charge of injustice?  Then again, if everyone were to be given salvation, would not the ultimate injustice be in the existence of suffering in this life throughout the course of this world at the hands of multitudes with no threat of punishment? If God never had created, there would be no suffering...and no one to know that there is no suffering, but also no joy....and no one to experience the glory, majesty and righteousness, mercy and love of God who "gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (ESV) Is it possible that the origin of our claim that God is unjust really in that we do not know everything that He knows, and would this not be us, the creature, demanding to be as God, the Creator?
         What is the ultimate demand that you might give to God in order to absolve Him of the charge of injustice? If you eventually find God innocent of injustice, and He is taken out of the dock, might it not be wise to dwell on His goodness. The offer of forgiveness, adoption and redemption would then be seen, not as unjust, but as wonderful. This is undeniably a poor treatise on free will but I only hope to encourage you to reconsider charges of injustice towards God and ask yourself who rightfully lays the groundwork for salvation, you or God. 

         For resources on this topic that are infinitesimally better than mine visit www.ligonier.org 

Pirates.......and Barbarians

       As I write this the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team is about an hour into their first playoff game in over two decades. It's also a single game playoff between wild card teams, so this is it! There was a day, oh there was a day, when I would be pacing the floor with every pitch. It was much the same for football and other sports. I had my teams and I went from one sport to another and from one year to the next.
       The following is a very short synopsis of two of the topics I have written about in this blog over the years and there is a reason for me writing them here. On politics first...Barack Obama was a Manchurian Candidate and is a Marxist if not Communist plant in our office of President. I doubt if he has a single good feeling about America and for that matter any of the special interest groups that were conned into putting him into office. He is no friend to Israel and way too friendly to Israel's enemies...and our enemies. He has continuously ignored our Constitution, lied all along the way while he golfed and partied his free time away, which was considerable.
       Let me move on to.....the church.....in America.  Only God knows what a graph of the spiritual health of the church in America would look like but what we can know is that today's church would be on a very low, if not the lowest point. It thinks that it is healthy...naturally....Laodicean churches always do, but it is not. It is a lack of knowledge and a lack of shepherds and not a lack of care that ails it. It desperately needs to turn inwards to find what its moorings were once tied to, moorings broken away from in this postmodern fog covering all of America.
       OK, these are two very strong statements. Why do I believe them where you probably do not? I'm not smarter than you nor am I a better Christian. It's closer to the fact that I don't have a concern in the world what happens in that Pirate game tonight. It's not that baseball is bad for anyone for it isn't....it's that sports, and many-many other things, can kill one's discernment. Do the folks in that stadium tonight realize that their nation is collapsing, that barbarians are not only at the gate but within the walls and have been handed positions of authority? If they did then they would know that their children's lives and happiness are in extreme jeopardy! Oh they might still be at the game for various reasons, and many humbled Christians probably are, but it would be scheduled into a daily regimen, with a shedding of tears and rending of garments, of continuous prayer and studying to seek discernment on why we are where we are as a nation and a church and to plead God's mercy upon us.
       One last comment, a comment I have made before... if I could not express my thoughts in a different way than most others who hold to the same beliefs that I do then there would be no purpose in a blog like this. Others can do the theology better and there are numerous resources in print and on radio where one can hear the same warnings. So I bring up the Pittsburgh Pirates. Maybe someone takes offense at it but then maybe, just maybe, they might consider the thoughts I tried to convey here and reapportion their time, talents and efforts to God's glory!
  

21 Hours...19 Minutes!

         Usually, when I go four or five days without a new post it's because I have been down with something and such was the case again this time. There was a blessing though, as there also usually is, in that I could just lay there and listen to most of Senator Ted Cruz's 21 hour and 19 minute speech, or filibuster if you will, to Senate seats...and to America. It was not only American history being written, it was one of the great oratorical stands in our history, a history with the likes of Patrick Henry. I don't know if we have time to right this ship of state. If I were to guess it would be that we do not, that our presumption upon God's longsuffering with our rebellion has long since reached its limit, for His judgments upon us have already started, the greatest being that more often than not we cannot even distinguish good from evil nor right from wrong let alone choose between the two.
          If....God will have mercy upon us, then the last few days may have been a beginning in the political arena, for a great statesman, and a few other stalwarts,  have emerged out of a cesspool of ethical and intellectual delinquency...the United States Senate. If God's hand is indeed stayed then you may one day proudly look back upon what our House of Representatives and handful of Senators are attempting and say something such as "I remember those days....I was there!" To those of you outside of the United States, and there are quite a few who visit this blog, you are witnessing somewhat of a second American revolution, the rebels being.... freedom and liberty loving patriots with a reverential fear of Almighty God, needing only the heat of the cauldron turned up for the dross of our past sins to rise to the top leaving us dripping in the sweat of pure humility while seeking mercy and forgiveness. Whether we rise or fall, the hold of the Republican Establishment Class is broken and though when all is said and done that they may win here, there will someday be, should God will it, another crossing of the Delaware, and they and their political consultant class of mercenaries will lose that hold that stifles participation in our republic and fails to defend or even warn.
         Lastly, the censure, ridicule and recriminations towards Senator Cruz continue but the spell is broken. The more that they lambast good men and women, the louder and clearer they tell Americans that though they failed time and again over decades, though they long ago gave up trying, though they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage.... that they can cut the legs out from men like Ted Cruz but will find that he still towers over them on his knees and they can attempt to demoralize us but will find that a....plain, russet-coated Captain will not bow before the rostrum of elitism. I bring this older post back to explain the previous sentence:
        


plain, russet-coated Captains........Redux!

       .......A much more likely scenario for myself and others would be to work for principled true Republican conservatives for Congress and a third party candidate for the White House.  This pitched battle that is just commencing between Conservatives and Royalists is not a chance encounter. It has been brewing for many years and the Republican Establishment, or Royalists as I like to call them, have taken advantage of us, their base, time after time. They launched a volley this week announcing that 100 Republican donors, mostly gentlemen I presume, signed on to their cause. I gave this quote by Oliver Cromwell before but it seems extraordinarily apropos today: "I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else." Here is the situation. As it stands now we could not win the presidency with a third party candidate but if America does not experience a reformation and a great awakening... then even winning both houses and the Oval Office would do nothing to stop the hemorrhaging. On the other hand should Americans return to the God who gave them their very existence, all the money in the king's purse could not help Karl Rove. Should God will it, the numbers will be there in abundance, both in 2014 and 2016! That is, should He will it that we even make it that far as a nation unscathed and unbroken.
 

.....in God's good time.....

 This from June 6, 2013

       I look back and wonder.....how did we come to this? What happened to the American people? How did a Marxist, if not an out and out Communist, become our President and then bring a crew of political hacks into leadership and administrative positions as our enemies licked their lips while planning our demise. I wonder... even though I know the answer. We are nothing...we never were anything...except that God used us for His purpose...to His glory. We once not only acknowledged His sovereignty, we bowed before Him and He responded by having mercy upon us in spite of our wanderings. He made us a great nation whose people were brave and courageous......and then we decided that we do not need Him. We were even ashamed of Him. We stood by as higher education ridiculed God. We turned our children over to the ideologues in charge of our educational system. We were seduced by television and more recently by the computer. God looks down upon us as we worship idols, the greatest of which may be our own Facebook image.
       The only bright spot is that Barack Obama's team has started his second term stumbling over the mounting lies, the deception and the outrageous vanity and arrogance characterized his first four years. Their scams are coming to light like decomposed bodies rising to the surface from shallow graves after a heavy rain. The momentum is changing and it would do us well to remember Winston Churchill's words to his country in their time of despair, June 4th, 1940. I'd like to use some of those words and paraphrase others and add a few of my own:         
 
      We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in the courts, we shall fight in the Congress, we shall fight on the airwaves, with growing confidence and growing strength in our schools and universities,  we shall defend our Constitution and should God first induce us to seek his mercy and forgiveness, and then endue us with fortitude and wisdom, then empower us to do his bidding and to rebuild His church, and should he will it to withhold His judgment, only then might we pass liberty and freedom on to our children, only then...in God's good time... might we be used once again.....for His purpose....and to His glory!

Defunding Obamacare

       I'm bringing this post back after only a few weeks because of reported developments in the House of Representatives today on the defunding of Obamacare. In a change of heart, House leaders will bring a "continuing resolution that defunds Obamacare" up for a vote. This is a necessary first step in the defunding process and very good news but as Jim DeMint wrote today..."the hard work is just beginning." There is a very real possibility that this monstrosity of Obamacare will be shelved, and if it is, with a head of steam, it may only be the beginning of Congress saying no to the politics of tyranny!
              
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August 30, 2013

DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP

        "We have met the enemy, and he is us," was the comic strip character Pogo's comment on the frailties of humankind. Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo, borrowed a phrase from history and changed it a little bit for his main character.
         It's just about two hundred years since the Battle Of Lake Erie. As a matter of fact the Bicentennial celebration is about to begin at Put-In-Bay, Ohio on the lake. My wife and I were there this past weekend for a little getaway. We parked our car at the dock and took the ferry across to South Bass Island, stayed two nights at a bed and breakfast and rented a golf cart, the highlight being visiting the 352 foot Doric column victory monument to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry who commanded the American naval forces in the battle that would have a dramatic influence on the outcome of the War of 1812.
         Let me give you a little perspective on the battle. Control of the Great Lakes was vital to both sides, the Americans and the British. There were not many ships involved but the victorious side would indeed control the lakes.  Perry's flag ship was the Lawrence which was named after naval Captain James Lawrence, a friend of Oliver Hazard Perry who had died in battle and reportedly uttered Don't give up the ship as his last words. Blue flags with these words, DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP, are  literally everywhere on the island and particularly the little community of Put-In-Bay on the north end.
      The Lawrence was incessantly battered early in the battle and four fifths of its crew were either killed or wounded. The ship was expected to surrender but Perry and its remaining able bodied men boarded a skiff and rowed a half a mile through cannon fire to the Niagara. Perry then continued the battle and by the Almighty's blessing, as he worded it in his report, brought victory to the American forces. He wrote the following words, which would be etched in American history, in pencil on the back of an envelop and sent it to then General William Henry Harrison, "We have met the enemy and he is ours."
         I was in the back of a crowded hall last night in Pittsburgh, it was standing room only, and listening to former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint in his Heritage Action For America tour to defund Obamacare, and afterwards the actions of Commodore Perry came to my mind as I thought they relate to Jim DeMint who was himself battered in the United States Senate and who when his time there had achieved all that it could, he, like Perry in his skiff, took command of another vessel, The Heritage Foundation, to continue the fight. I have written a lot on Jim DeMint throughout this blog. I wanted him to run for President and think that he would have won, and I've written that he is not  only another Reagan but a better than Reagan! Unfortunately, as I have witnessed, there are far too many who talk a good game on opposing Barack Obama but don't show up..... and I sometimes see evidence of Pogo's lament.....we have met the enemy...and he is us.

www.heritage.org 
    

A Violent Culture

The following post is from April of this year:

         There were instances in the writings of the Old Testament prophets where God pronounced judgment on the people and the reason was because they had become, among other things, a violent people....yet there were no guns at the time. The precursor to the violence was the denying of the God who had rescued them from Egypt, guided them and delivered to them a land of milk an honey. The people had tired of God, therefore He had left them to themselves, and they became a violent people. So what is the analogy to today.....just about everything except the guns. We too are a violent culture that has rejected the God who had rescued us from tyranny and delivered to us a land of  milk and honey and liberty and freedom. If a pre-born baby is fortunate enough to escape abortion, and also fortunate enough to be born into a loving Christian family with both mother and father, they will still have to navigate a culture that evicted its creator, its protector and sustainer.
         We are a violent culture because we have no place for God. Many citizens turn to guns to protect themselves in this violent culture and are now faced with the possibility of being denied guns by those whose rejection of God invited the violence to begin with. We had a nation of laws that kept order but those same people who want no part of God, want no part of the constitutional republic that gave them their liberties and freedoms.
         So we don't want God or the order and precision that He enabled the Founders of this nation to write into our Constitution. These people just want to be able.... to do their thing....free of God and His Word...and if they run out of money they will want your money, and they want your guns so that you don't get any ideas of protecting your money or your liberties. And they use the violence that has overtaken our nation as a pretext to limit our guns and our liberties. They claim to be doing this for the children but had sat back and said nothing as the children were offered up on the altars of feminism, greed, narcissism and self-autonomy.
         There is little wisdom anywhere in America and little discernment. Evil is called good and good is called evil. We are indeed defenseless but there is One who is able to thwart the rebel and open the eyes of the prodigal. Should God will it we as a people will turn to Him. Should He not will to do so we will simply become one more nation on the ash heap of history.

Peace And Security

         I've relayed this story in past posts quite a few times; someone once asked Martin Luther what he would do if he knew for certain that Jesus was coming back the next day. Luther's answer was that he would "plant a tree." His intent is obvious. We are to continue on this pilgrimage of our Christian walk right up until that time of the Lord's return, whether it seems imminent or not. I believe that Luther's advice was sound.
         This past Saturday morning I took a little day trip to some outlets about an hour north of our home. I reached into the glove compartment to see what R. C. Sproul cd's (www.ligonier.org) I might have on hand. One of them was on the Old Testament book of Amos which my wife and I had listened to previously. That doesn't matter at all to me. I listened to it on the way up to the outlets........ listened to it again on the way back.....and was in the middle of a third playing when I arrived back home. Does that sound fanatical to you. Well, it's about as fanatical as breathing. I might add that without this type of "fanaticism" we far too often wind up being influenced by the world's pastimes.
         This post today is really on one thought...one verse from the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians. I bring it up because I rarely hear these words emphasized and expounded upon and because it is important in God's last days timetable whether the Second Coming of our Lord is near...or even nearer still. The verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Paul is writing here about the "Day of the Lord," that time when God will step in to judge the world.  He writes..."While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them." (ESV)
         It's important that Christians know that a false peace and a false security precede the beginning of the climatic events. I know that this concept is never far from my mind. I would be more concerned if the world started celebrating peace and security if than if they started gearing up for war.  That's not to say that imminent wars are not times of great concern. My past two posts speak to that. Rather it's more to avoid concern... only...only... when things are unstable. The "thief in the night" terminology of this same book of 1 Thessalonians should not describe the Christian. When the world says in unison "peace and security," it should draw us even closer to God's Word, particularly His prophetic Word.

Who Should Lead the Attack?

         The chaos in Washington D. C. these days has surpassed any other time in our history. There have been many times that we as a nation did not seek God's wisdom before going to war but never before have we contemplated war when much of our leadership could qualify as atheists if not God haters. Our enemies not only smell blood... they sense fear. Not the fear to attack Syria for this administration is perfectly willing to do that, but fear that if we do not appease radical Islam...by attacking Syria...that they will become even more emboldened.
         There's a story in the 19th and 20th chapters of the Old Testament book of Judges that we in America might want to consider. It records disastrous events in Israel revolving around.... an outrageous crime.... a coalition army..... and civil war. It is also very reminiscent of the Biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
          The crime was a murderous rape of a traveler's concubine by a mob of men, a mob that first demanded that the traveler himself come out to them to be sexually assaulted. The men of this mob were from the tribe of Benjamin  The coalition is the remaining eleven tribes of Israel that form an army to bring the guilty men to justice. The tribe of Benjamin refuses to give the men over and a civil war erupts within Israel.
         Israel apparently did not first seek out God's wisdom in the matter! Their own council would suffice! Instead they only asked God which tribe should lead the attack.  God gave them the answer that they wanted...it was Judah, but Israel's much larger army of 400,000 men was then routed by the 26,000 men of the tribe of Benjamin! It was only on the third attack did God say that he would give victory to Israel who had already paid dearly in the loss of life while the tribe of Benjamin was eventually so devastated that from that time on they were known as the smallest of the tribes.


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 The following post is from earlier this year:

The New York State School Prayer

             It was a little over fifty years ago that Regents of the educational system of New York put in place this short prayer to be read in classrooms: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our teachers and our country. Some objected to this and the ensuing case went to the Supreme Court in Engel vs. Vitale where a six to one decision was rendered in favor of the plaintiff. Potter Stewart was the only Justice in dissent. This was a landmark decision that led to other court decisions that evicted Almighty God from the classroom. We have utterly collapsed as a nation since then as we have had assassinations, a war that was lost from within as was a war on drugs, a recently politicized and politically correct national defense, economic suicide through the bailout and stimulus, rampant narcissism culminating in the monstrosity of a Facebook culture, tens of millions of legal abortions and whole professions that have utterly failed their callings; plus we have a Manchurian President put in office by others who hate America...its traditions... its belief in God and its individualism and finally marriage between a man and a woman may be co-opted by those raised in an educational system that has officially ignored if not ridiculed... God. Would it be a good idea for Christians to resurrect that prayer, to start our day with it, to close our eyes at night with it on our lips, to recite it as we read of the latest horror story in the news and to meditate upon it each and every time that we see our flag flying in front of those schools, those court houses and post offices? I think that it would, only I would add we beg thy forgiveness and mercy to "blessings."

Syria Questions

         Dick Van Dyke has always been a favorite of my mine and often my wife and I sit in front of the television set for a MeTV's rerun of the Dick van Dyke show. I saw a clip of the 87 year old Van Dyke on Breitbart today. News reporters were following him as he strolled into a local art show. One of the questions that they asked him was about Syria. He turned serious and talked about being very concerned about what will happen if the United States attacks. I think that most reasonable citizens feel the same way but right now they are being fed a line.
         There are questions that I would like to be entered into this debate on Syria. Why is it that Christians are routinely murdered by Muslim mobs with hardly a word coming from our government but we are willing to risk a Middle-East war in outrage over Syria? Why do we ignore Iran and threaten its puppet?  Why are we always defending the radical Islamist? Have we forgotten who was responsible for 9/11, for passenger planes flying into the World Trade Center and people leaping out of those buildings to avoid the heat? Did the heroes of Flight 93 die at the hands of an organization that our government is trying to prop up?
         The United States military, or "my military" as Barack Obama has recently, and astonishingly....even sickeningly described them, has said that they are prepared for all possible contingencies. Really? Or were they pressured into making these statements? Let's take the time to get the full story.
         With Benghazi, the NSA and other issues that are closing in on this administration, and immigration reform and defunding Obamacare  seriously jeopardizing Barack Obama's agenda, the Syria situation seems to be a convenient diversion.
          In 1994 the Clinton Administration failed to step in to stop the genocide in Rwanda where estimates of 500,000 to one million people were killed. President Clinton said that he "regretted" that failure. A Wikipedia article on Susan Rice gives these clues on how she, as the National Security Advisor, might act today on Syria. As a then part of the National Security Council team in the Clinton administration she is quoted as saying at the time "If we use the word 'Genocide,' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November election?" In the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide she is quoted again, "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required." I would like her to be questioned as how much politics is playing in the Syria situation and also would she expound on her "going down in flames" comment? Particularly...does just she go down in flames....or do we all?
         The situation that we find ourselves in right now is that we have an assortment of people that chance could not have put together, who are extraordinary in their total lack of wisdom, untrustworthiness and history of political underhandedness, who are making a decision for war. Barack Obama's allegiances are in doubt along with that of a number of people he has brought to government, John Kerry is about the last person one should consult on any matters of national security, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Boehner are using this in an attempt to reestablish their fading leadership in the party. We as a nation have never been as bereft of wisdom in that leadership as we are today.
         One last thought is on Israel. It has no greater friend in the world than the Conservatives in America. Hezbollah is Israel's enemy and their biggest imminent threat. We understand that. Do not draw us into war on false premises. Do no join into Barack Obama's schemes for he will never voluntarily support you and you may lose much of your support in America.

Thomas Sowell

         Thomas Sowell's 2009 book Intellectuals And Society was, in my estimation, so profound that I wrote chapter reports rather than a book report and the following is the first one. His book has proved as prescient as well as profound and we can see the debris strewn far and wide of a community activist-Manchurian candidate with little to no paper trail who has been handed the reigns of our economy, our families, our national defense and our future. A Revised and Expanded edition was released late last year.

January 2010

         Thomas Sowell is a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of numerous books. He's an economist whose works were very influential and a social philosopher who has the admiration of people such as Rush Limbaugh and historian Paul Johnson. His syndicated columns appear in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Fortune and numerous other media outlets. By his own admission, he was a Marxist in his 20s. He is Black and was born to a poor family in the South. A high school dropout due to financial reasons, he went on to graduate magna cum laude from Harvard and received a Doctor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Chicago. It is his latest book, Intellectuals and Society that I would like to write about piecemeal because of the importance of each chapter.
         According to Sowell, this is an age like no other in being influenced by intellectuals, who he describes as those who deal with ideas where there is generally no external test to determine whether those ideas are right or wrong. He stresses that intellect itself is not wisdom, pointing out the obviously incorrect belief by Marx that labor...is the source of wealth. He quotes George Orwell in "Some ideas are so foolish only an intellectual could believe them." What is needed to go along with the intellect, according to Sowell, is knowledge, experience and judgment. His answer to his own question of whether a financial genius would be considered an intellectual is a resounding No because they, along with engineers and even football coaches, are held to external standards.
          He points out that intellectuals, generally, do not administer the programs their ideas lead to. Thus the importance of this book, for the essence of many of the ideas that we struggle with in American politics, ideas that would restructure America and jettison its heritage, have originated with intellectuals, who according to Sowell, are unaccountable to the outside world. The author also points out that many of these ideas garner excitement in this culture and need validation only from those who tend to have these beliefs in the first place! An example might be (my thought here) the Cap and Trade, Global Warming initiative that is generally accepted only by those who might benefit from it intellectually or financially, and this in spite of evidence that its research was faulty at best and falsified at worst.
         Sowell concludes the first chapter of his book with examples of intellectuals whose theories were proven wrong, yet their reputations were enhanced! Lest one thinks that this book is simply an anti-intellectual diatribe, it is the opposite...for Sowell himself is one of those intellectuals, but one who has other attributes, all of which culminate in wisdom, of which he uses in his own realm of expertise.