Hej...Konnichi Wa....Salaam....Privet....Hola....Guten Tag....Zdravo....Lei Ho

         The following was originally post in May of 2011 and was directed to international visitors to these posts. It describes a God-fearing people who see the calamity all around them and are determined to change the course of their country. This is what you witnessed last evening in our election. It is not a national repentance, far from it, but it not a seared conscience either.
          I have asked this before but never specifically to readers from readers outside of the United States. Please consider passing this post on to friends and loved ones because the information on America that receive from the mainstream medias is grossly innacurate and highly biased against the truth.

Hej...Konnichi Wa....Salaam....Privet....Hola....Guten Tag....Zdravo....Lei Ho....

          Chances are that the image of America that you have is fairly accurate but a very incomplete one. Hollywood, television, Broadway and literature have been our ambassadors. We are indeed a violent culture. We became very successful after World War II. The power of industry, agriculture and  technology made us feel that we would never see the day when we, as a people, would go hungry. Our culture has utterly collapsed since then and we have been more than willing to share the recipe for that collapse.

          The Leftist and the Marxist who has been trying to overthrow our way of life for a hundred years is now in the midst of succeeding. Our universities have long since lost their mission to train minds and now train activists of the worst sort in the activism of inactivism which sits back and permits the encroachment of tyranny. Our purpose in life is to seek amusement. The patriot has become the fool. The leadership of our Democratic Party are the Village People who succeeded through their absurdities. Many of our cities display crime and squalor to a watching world and we have sacrificed our children to the pied pipers who began to draw them away long ago through melody which has since been replaced by a cacophony of grunts and groans, a music that now often beats not soothes that savage breast. We live for our 401k investments in the stock market. Our rich insulate themselves in gated communities. Our celebrities mesmerize us as they walk the red carpet and titillate us further as they burn on the pyres of their own making. Any guilt we might have is assuaged by throwing someone else's money at the problems that were started by those who tax and throw to begin with. 

          We are to be pitied.....that is if you look only at our ambassadors and we might justly be hated if you hear only the BBC or our media but there is one virtue that God has not as of yet taken from us and that is the fallow ground that can be replenished to give fruit unto repentance. The further away one gets from the neon lights and the thuggish tactics of political machines, a different breed appears. They (we) also are flooded by the entertainments that have breached the levees, but with shovels and sandbags in hand we are trying to repair that breach, and praying for the rains to stop. Secure the levees and the government's usurped powers not enumerated by our Constitution will drain back into the cesspools of which they arose. 

          Our Civil War of the 1860s was one of blue and grey, fought with gunpowder. Our civil war today is one of blue state and red state mentalities. The battleground that the blue state chooses is on the judge's bench (judicial activism), the university chair (political correctness) and the seats of bureaucratic power. The landscape chosen by the red state is in the conscience, on paper in the words of our founders and on our knees. The blue state seeks an imperial presidency while the red state recognizes only the constitutional republic that we in fact are. The blue state wants a nation of serfs while the red state seeks to build a nation of producers. The blue state says "Yes we can!" while the red state responds "No we can't but God is able, and willing if we seek His wisdom."

          If we lose this fight, might I humbly put to you, you will lose also! Our differences are illustrated in the words of two presidents, one of whom was Ronald Reagan who said in his first inaugural speech "We Americans have the capacity now, as we've had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom," this compared with the words of our current president five days prior to the election that conceivably could be the final nail in our coffin "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
          We are not a people of one ethnicity, nor a nation supplied by one continent. Our strength has always been in our diversity, and had been even before the founding of our nation when people of different denominations, theologies and traditions grappled with one another for decades with the final result being our Constitution. That beautiful diversity has been hijacked and we are now force-fed a politically correct abominable distortion of it. We are red, white, yellow, brown and black. Our enemies accuse us of racism but a higher proportion that demographics would predict of our choicest political and economic minds (Allen West and Thomas Sowell for example) are black. Our enemies say that we don't want the Latino but their addition, legally accomplished, will strengthen us. They say that we are anti-women but women are our strongest and most courageous voices. They say we do not care for the poor but it is only through God's wisdom that we can alleviate the situation. They say we are imperialistic but it is us that say to you...keep your traditions, defend your country, hold fast against the one-world government mentality that seeks to co-opt us all. They say we are uneducated but they continually revert to bullying, coercion and corruption when their arguments are shown unsound. 

          Diversities of traditions are an ornament to the Earth and my travels into your countries were some of my most happiest moments. Our tradition is one of freedom, liberty and acknowledgment that all of our blessings were bestowed upon us by God and Him alone! We are fighting, not against your traditions but against the hybrid of globalism that seeks to destroy both yours and ours.

 

For We Ourselves Were Once Just As Feeble....

          The Clintons have been a malignancy on our nation for over two decades. There is a dark, violent, pagan, totalitarian force that supports and encompasses a person like Hillary Clinton. We have witnessed the corruption of power in its most hideous form through the Clintons, yet almost half of America cares nothing about this. .....nothing! The horrors of Communism, walking now in the shadow of Barack Obama, would then walk in her shadow hoping not to be seen, as would radical Islamists, yet the media says nothing about this....nothing! This in itself is evidence of the terror lurking in the darkened corridors of our ignorance.
            There are no prayers that can be offered for people whose consciences have been seared. Herein is but one difference in this election. Much of America may soon be on their knees in prayer for mercies, as many of us are now. May God humble us and forgive us our dalliances, many and grievous as they have been, and give us leaders who.... feeble and captive to vainglory as they may be, can at least be lifted up in prayer...that they might in our time of trouble humble themselves....for we ourselves were once just as feeble and captive to vanities.

Same Hope....Four Years Later

         The following post is from November of 2012, two days before our last presidential election. It has been four years but every Lord's Day since then I have hoped for the same thing... that I will hear stories from brothers and sisters in Christ that something strange happened in their church service.... that there was a a dread and a soberness akin to paralysis where God's presence was so overwhelming that all of the baubles and all the entertainments of this world are seen as the vanity that they are.

Post Tenebras Lux

         Roughly twelve hours from my beginning this particular post pastors will be taking the pulpits of America, at least in the Eastern time zone, and continuing each hour for the few hours after that as the earth turns to greet the new Lord's Day. America's decline is rapidly speeding up and we were given a glimpse of that in the aftermath of the superstorm (Hurricane Sandy) that wreaked havoc on the east coast. We have an election for president coming up that could be described as theater of the absurd. I'm sitting in front of a fireplace as I type... and just as I ended that last sentence the small flickering flame died out. This is what will happen to the small flame of liberty and Christianity in America if we continue as we are, seeking our own will over God's, our own glory over His.  Our only hope is in those pulpits but there are no signs, to my knowledge anyway, that they are being infused with life. God is longsuffering but we have taken him to the limit on this. (Four years later and there are still no signs of life even though the danger to our nation is increasing inexorably.)
         My hope for some time has been that I would begin to hear stories from brothers and sisters about their church services where a deathly pall fell over the congregation, where the stillness of despair overwhelmed the festivities of the day, where the pastor's ever-present smile was now a frown as if he was preaching from a bombed out sanctuary.
         Eighteenth century pastor and theologian Jonathon Edwards preached more on love than he did on hell but his sermon Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God had just such effects on his congregation. God has been warning us for quite some time now. I watched more football today than in the last twenty years combined as I was lured by the Pitt/Notre Dame game, a game which I lived for way back then. After about an hour I was shaken by the memory of the power that sport once held over me. The coward in me pleads with God to awaken us before judgment comes. There are no signs of awakening but there are signs all around of that judgment.
         Many others see this...... I'm not the only one. Maybe this Monday morning I'll hear a story about someone's strange church service that was filled with dread. Maybe God will have mercy upon us once again. There was a Latin phrase widely used at the time of the Reformation....post tenebras lux.... after darkness...light. Jesus said "I am the light of the world." This is our hope....our only hope....not political elections.

"No Day Of My Life..."

        These next few days will certainly be nerve-racking for all Americans who understand that our republic is in danger of total collapse. They will be waiting with bated breath until the election returns start to come in....as will I....but not entirely for the same reasons. Donald Trump can do nothing to save our nation....as neither could any of our great leaders from the past if they were with us today. Breitbart News reported on a rally of Donald Trump's yesterday in New Hampshire where at one point he departed from the teleprompter text. A man, caught up in the euphoria of the moment, yelled out..."Save us!" to which Donald Trump responded...."We're gonna save ourselves!" His comment was meant to imply that we 'all' will save ourselves...not just him, but still it was further evidence that we are looking for help in the wrong place.
         A very recent survey of Americans made headlines in that it showed that very very few in America understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ and most even hold to outlandishly heretical views...yet this is the America that can so easily say or sing....God Bless America. This is also the America where many are pinning their hopes on a man who also has no concept of our beginnings, the reasons for our present trials, or our only hope for mercies in the future. The following post from this past July, and the accompanying prayer, point to where only a very small minority of Americans are today....but it also points to a time when a majority of Americans could easily say this prayer.
        This fundamental change in America is the primary reason that we are collapsing as a nation. Barack Obama and the Clintons have been but ignored symptoms of this plague upon our minds and our hearts. This coming election is not an antidote. It is at best a treatment to ease the pain for a time.
(note: Survey results can be found by Googling religious survey, Ligonier)

No Day Of My Life...

         Ronald Reagan could not right this ship of state. George Washington could not buy us another day apart from what God has allotted. Thomas Jefferson could not convince this moribund Congress of its illness. Benjamin Franklin could not shame this media into doing their job. Abraham Lincoln could not find words of wisdom to penetrate the cold, listless, Facebook mentality that paralyzes our intellects. Self-abasement and repentance are what is needed in America. We have done it before but we are different people today. We are more likely to demand that God admit a little culpability in our problems.
        It was probably the mid 1990's, I was listening to John MacArthur's radio program Grace To You, and he offered his listening audience a free book titled Valley of Vision. The offer slipped my mind and I never sent for it. I happened upon it one day while looking through a catalog from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The full title is The Valley Of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, and it's edited by Arthur Bennett and published by Banner Of Truth Trust. It sits prominently on a table in our dining room and I use it as a dinner prayer book irregardless of who we might have over. It is one of my most valued possessions in life.
         The following is one of those prayers. I read it over three or four times before starting to compose this post. The reader does not know the author of the prayers. A dozen or so names from the past are given but it was intentional not to put a name to the individual prayers. Please consider meditating on the words of this prayer if only for a few minutes. Does your pastor pray in this spirit of humility? Do your own prayers prostrate yourself before God as this prayer would have us?

The Broken Heart       
        
O Lord, No day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in thy sight,
Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart;
Praise has been often praiseless sound;
My best services are filthy rags.
Blessed Jesus, Let me find a covert in thy appeasing wounds.
Though my sins rise to heaven thy merits soar above them;
Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell,
Thy righteousness exalts me to thy throne.
All things in me call for my rejection,
All things in thee plead my acceptance.
I appeal from the throne of perfect justice
To thy throne of boundless grace,
Grant me to hear thy voice assuring me:
that by thy stripes I am healed,
that thou wast bruised for my iniquities,
that thou hast been made sin for me,
that I might be righteous in thee,
that my grievous sins, my manifold sins,
are all forgiven,
buried in the ocean of thy concealing blood.
I am guilty, but pardoned
lost, but saved.
wandering, but found,
sinning, but saved,
Give me perpetual broken-heartedness,
Keep me always clinging to thy cross.
Flood me every moment with descending grace,
sparkling like crystal
flowing clear and unsullied
through my wilderness of life

"Regrets Yes, No Doubts Though"

The following was first posted November 4th, 2013:

        November 4th, 1979 is a day forever etched into my mind. I sat at the side of my father's hospital bed and watched as the bleeps on the heart rate monitor came slower and slower...and then stopped. That day and the immediate days after were a blur to me and I really can't remember much of them.  I weighed fifty pounds less on November 4th, 1979 then I do sitting here on my recliner writing this post. I was a runner back then but my Jim Fixx... Runner's Day-by-Day Log and Calendar shows nothing from those days other than miles ran, weight and occasional comments on the weather or the run.
        I did volunteer phone work in the Pennsylvania primary for Ted Kennedy's run for the presidency in the 1980 campaign. I had been a supporter, a fan is probably a better word, of the Kennedy family for as long as I can remember and can recall being whisked out of our grade school classroom to line the street and wave as then presidential candidate John Kennedy's motorcade drove by on his visit to Buffalo. Robert Kennedy's death affected me greatly....and Ted Kennedy....well it was just natural to support his campaign for President. My father is buried in Arlington Cemetery a few hundred yards away from the graves of these three brothers.
         I wouldn't find out until days later that Ted Kennedy's campaign for president began to collapse the very day that my father died as the Senator from Massachusetts sat for a disastrous interview with CBS newsman Roger Mudd. This was three days before his run for the White House was even officially announced. Senator Kennedy was asked the simple question "Why do you want to be president?" Had I been watching this interview live my head would have sunk into my hands as the Massachusetts Senator stammered his way through a vacuous answer that gave doubt to all those watching of his qualifications to be president. There was a long way to go in that campaign but Kennedy never recovered from that infamous interview on November 4th, 1979..
         It was another news story that dominated on that day in 1979 and I did at least catch those headlines but no one could foresee the earth shaking reverberations the event would have over the coming years right up until today. President Jimmy Carter had effectively turned his back on the Shah of Iran who was in the United States for medical treatment. Iranian students who were supporting a revolution in their country seized 52 American hostages from the American embassy in Tehran. This hostage crisis would last 444 days and not be resolved until the very day that Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as Jimmy Carter's successor. It has been 35 years (37 now) since that day and Iran is now a threat to Israel, to the United States and to world peace.
         Six weeks after my father died I started a new job, the same job that I returned home from just a few hours ago. (and the same job I retired from a month ago) Within the next three years I went  from being a lifelong Democrat volunteering in political campaigns to an ardent conservative Republican. I went from wearing a suit to work to wearing a hardhat and steel-toe boots, and I went from being a rather non-religious occasional church goer to a cross pin in the hat...Bible in the back pocket... born-again Christian. My great regret is that I had, and thus have today, no idea if my father had considered his eternal soul in his last days. This I don't know for I had no clue as to my own eternal soul at the time.
         November 4th always brings back these memories, sometimes a tear or two, and thoughts about my life before redemption....by grace alone...through faith alone.....in Christ alone. I did come across a comment that I made in my Jim Fixx running logs that helps explain those days a little bit. It was on March 5th, 1982...."Saw Chariots Of Fire today." The comment was out of place among years (nine years total) of only running comments. The fortitude and determination of Eric Liddell, as depicted in the film, made me question my own life....I remember that.... and I would find answers to those questions before the end of the year.
          There is a scene in that Academy Award winning film where Eric Liddell is asked if he regretted not running his Olympic race that was scheduled on the Sabbath. His answer was...as well as I remember it....."Regrets yes....no doubts though." It was an answer that begs for some further explanation which I cannot give other than to say that I also have many regrets in my Christian walk.....but also.....no doubts.......no doubts on the Lord Jesus Christ, on His majesty, His mercy, His kingship, on the infallible Word given to us in the Bible, and on His resurrection, ascension and Second Coming in power and glory along with all the saints that have passed on...including Eric Liddell.
        

If Not For The Same Reasons...

        I have filled these posts with one teary-eyed postmortem for our country after another for almost eight years. More recently I pleaded with the reader to stand back apart from the glitter of  'make America great again' to more accurately access the damage to our nation and imminent judgement of God upon us.
        America is, as I type, collapsing upon us but most of us simply look up and remark on the kaleidoscope of colors, not realizing that it is the sun reflecting off of the stained glass, mirrored windows, neon lights, crystal chandeliers, silicon circuits and aluminum girders tumbling in slow motion. This is what it is like when God takes His protective hand off of a nation.       
        I've returned to the topic again and again over the last year....the window of opportunity that our enemies have before Barack Obama leaves office. If you have read and remember my thoughts, a Hillary Clinton administration just might have put their end game on hold as our defenses would continue to weaken but a four year Hillary Clinton presidency is highly unlikely now.  From Bernie Sanders to voter registration fraud, to dead voters, to voting more than once, to potential electronic fraud, to the media's and establishment's efforts to overlook corruption on an epic scale, to possible complicity by the Justice Department.....the fix has been in...but so much for 'the best laid schemes of mice and men' for Hillary and Bill may face charges of espionage before this is all over, elected or not, if not preemptively pardoned by Barack Obama who must by now be concerned with his own successful subterfuge.
       Now the Clinton campaign may still have plans for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue but our enemies know a bad bet when they see one one and a four-year Hillary administration is now officially a bad bet. Our enemies window of opportunity is now a window of necessity. Coinciding with Hillary's misfortune is Barack Obama's few short months of power remaining (provided that he does not suspend this election).  I wrote in a July 2011 post titled Son, I Failed To Try?... "It is my opinion that before this is all over, and by that I mean the Barack Obama era of either a four year or eight year period, he may flee this country. Whether indictments will be part of it or not I don't know but after Americans become aware of the full extent of what this President has done to our nation, to our national and domestic security, of his real intent as opposed to the fictitious constitutional scholar on the covers of Time and Newsweek throughout 2008, and without the media protection that is already starting to crack, he will eventually, more likely seek the approval of those outside this country who, although not totally in sync with his anti-colonial spirit of redistribution of wealth, appreciate his larger vision of a ...smaller America and his strong case for a weak America."
         So a Christian might now be tempted to be confident but that confidence would be sorely and terribly misplaced. This rebellion in not only the Republican Party but in America in general started long long ago.....when Donald Trump was still firing people on television. Mr. Trump became the spokesman for it.....period.....he offered nothing we had not been trumpeting for years, but to his great credit he was the loudest and boldest in the primaries.
        Other than this there is little to recommend Donald Trump for the position that he is seeking. He is not a God-fearing man....he is at best a God-accommodating man and perhaps we should be very thankful for that. Should God's plan be for him to assume this office of president....if such an office still exists after this turmoil.....Mr. Trump may find that he has essentially bit off more than he can chew. This is where you and I come in. We should not be celebrating Donald Trump as we are doing....we should be praying that if and when he assumes the office of leader of the free world and realizes the full rigors associated with the job that he would feel compelled to look elsewhere than within himself for strength.....and there would only be one place to go. We should also be praying that if the darker forces of human nature succeed in this election in spite of the mountain of evidence accumulating against them that our coming King would by then be mounted along with His mighty angels....for America, if these darker forces are given unrestrained power, would in effect be no more. It is for this reason that I as much as any reader of this post... if not for the same reasons....hope that in six days from now Donald Trump will be the president-elect.
      

Batten Down The Hatches

The following post is from 2015:

         I usually turn the volume up and listen intently to the lyrics when Gordon Lightfoot's hit song of 1976 The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald is played on the radio. We had just celebrated our bicentennial in America as the song was released. Bruce Jenner had won Olympic gold as  'the World's Greatest Athlete,' I shook Jimmy Carter's hand as he campaigned in Pittsburgh, and I was only weeks away from getting married. The Edmund Fitzgerald had sunk to its watery grave in Lake Superior less than a year earlier in November of 1975.
         We call them hatches today but they were formally called hatchways. A ship's hatches were not sealed and when a storm brewed the crew spread a tarpaulin over the hatch and secured it down with what were called battens. Thus we have had the term batten down the hatches. In Lightfoots original release of The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald, one lyric went "at seven PM a main hatchway gave in." The singer/songwriter was intrigued by the media coverage of the loss of the American Great Lakes freighter and thus the wreck was immortalized soon after the ship went down.
         On another topic, have you by any chance noticed how Billy Graham seems to have been going off the deep end for the last few decades with book titles like Approaching Hoofbeats, The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse and Storm Warning which was first published in 1995 and revised in 2010.   He's even received some criticism for the severe tone in what has been billed as "his final work" Where I Am, Heaven, Eternity, And Our Life Beyond.  One reviewer reported that it was "a significant shift from the approach he took after the first decade of his ministry..."
        Billy Graham of course has not gone off the deep end. I think that many years ago I experienced a similar "significant shift." God seems to be removing veils as of late. You might be saying, 'Oh He's been doing that for the last forty-five years starting with Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth.' I agree somewhat but with a qualifier. Those early years and those books were dominated by events and how they might fit into Biblical end-times. We are still preoccupied today with events on earth and in the heavens. What is needed and what they cannot do is to mortify, and therein is the 'shift' noticed in Billy Graham's writing.
         What we are seeing today in many ministers of the Gospel such as Billy Graham is an extreme soberness. Soberness in that these 'events' are no longer just a 'connect the dots.' This collapse in everything that we hold dear is more than unnerving! It should drive us to our knees. That others cannot see the full extent of what is happening in America and in the world should be no surprise at all.
        I've used a number of nautical terms in these posts of over seven years. I'm adding another today. Batten down the hatches! I think it high time to batten down the hatches.....close off those areas where sea water can enter....secure the cargo and set a even ballast, for the waves in this coming storm will be merciless, the winds revengeful and the sea unforgiving.
        We do have a safe harbor hemmed in by the mountains of the righteousness of Jesus Christ where we can tie onto the dock with 'cords of kindness, (and) with the bands of love' but we have sailed willfully into this tempest.....for we are as those of whom it is written in Psalm 107:

"Those who go down to the sea in ships,
Who do business on great waters,
(who) see the works of the LORD,
And His wonders in the deep.
For He commands and raises the stormy wind,
Which lifts up the waves of the sea....
Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble,
And He brings out of their distresses.
He calms the storm,
So that it's waves are still....
Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!

Crimes Of The Educators

The following post is from this past April:       

          I've been putting off writing this post, this book description actually, because unless the reader is at least aware that a Progressive education is a totally different animal than how American children were educated up until the beginning of the twentieth century then what is written in this book will shock even the best of conservatives and probably be ignored by everyone else. Also, unless one has children of their own and thus a heightened concern for where America is heading, then they are probably just not going to be interested. The book is Crimes Of The Educators, How Utopians are using Government Schools To Destroy American Children and it is written by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman.
          Most readers of this post are probably gone now after merely reading the book's title. I'm familiar with Mr. Blumenfeld for I read his book NEA: Trojan Horse In American Education back when it was first published in 1984. Some readers of this post are certainly familiar with him, for his writing and expertise on the Homeschooling movement, and I'm sure that many if not most homeschooling parents chose that direction after reading Dr. Blumenfeld's books and other information on the Progressive influence on American children.
          Let me give you a Thomas Jefferson quote that prefaces the entire book "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God; that they are not to be violated but with His wrath?"
          We know who John Dewey is right, at least those of us fifty years and older? Well, actually we don't, even though Barry Goldwater gave this warning over a half century ago in his book Conscience Of A Conservative..."In the main, the trouble with the American education is that we have put into practise the educational philosophy expounded by John Dewey...responding to the Deweyite attack on methods of teaching, we have encouraged the teaching profession to be more concerned with how a subject is taught than with what is taught...(and)...we have forgotten that the proper function of the school is to transmit the cultural heritage of one generation  to the next generation as to make them (the students) capable of absorbing ancient learning and applying it to the problems of today."
          Dewey's purpose in life seems to have been to dumb down American education in order to make the populace less individualistic and more controllable as a socialist utopian society is pursued. This from the book..."The method of achieving this was by simply changing the way children are taught to read in their schools. The utopians got rid of the traditional intensive phonics method of instruction and imposed a look-say, sight, or whole-word method..." There it is! The book is filled with SAT statistics, pertinent anecdotes and teacher testimonies, descriptions by neurologists on how the brain functions in reading, historical failures from 'fad of the year' teaching methods, the disaster of psychotropic drugs to cure ADD and ADHD, Big Brother and data collection, and concludes with an appendix of an article written by John Dewey in 1898 proving the author's thesis.
          President Obama's answer in 2013 to the latest...dismal at best... national test results was, according to the authors, "to give all US three- and four-year olds access to 'high quality' preschool education." Their comment on this was..."The new program would be run at the state level, with federal oversight. In other words, the dumbing down would begin earlier." Big surprise here, huh?
          There are dozens of references to Communism, Karl Marx and Socialism in this book of 321 pages, for as the authors write..."Socialism's objective had been from the very beginning to remake man from the competitive individual of a capitalist society to a cooperative being in a collectivist state." Chapter 14 is titled Cooperative Learning: Communist Ideology In the Classroom. A quote from H. L. Mencken is given..."There is no idea so stupid that you can't get some professor to believe it." This is part of Communist methodology...and we can see it in the global warming scam.
          So the book is there for those who are interested but quite frankly it takes time and effort to read and investigate like this and few seem up to it even though our nation collapses more each and every day right before our very eyes. It's so much easier to just vote for Donald Trump.
     

         

Modern America

        

         "We have poor leaders primarily because of our own individual failures but this convention was oblivious to that, and Donald Trump's promises were bereft of any introspection. Mr. Trump paid more attention to the LGBT (Q?) community than he did to the Creator of everything that exists, the Redeemer of all those who have placed their faith in Him, the Benefactor and Sustainer of this nation for over 240 years, and the coming King of whom Mr. Trump will then suddenly pay attention to"
          These two sentences are from my post as the Republican Convention concluded and Donald Trump gave his acceptance speech this past July. Last night Mr. Trump, at a Colorado rally, held what looked to be a 4x7 rainbow flag in his outstretched hands with 'LGBTs for Trump' painted on the yellow stripe.
          Am I going to vote for Donald Trump...Lord willing that God even permits us an election? Of Course! Anything short of that would be a similitude of partaking in the coronation and worship of an ancient Mesopotamian death cult deity. My question to you is....and please take the time to actually consider it.....do you find yourself more.....weeping for America.....as Jeremiah wept for his people....or cheering for Donald Trump?

Modern America....August 16, 2016

          It's only my opinion of course, but the country hit song from 16 years ago Just Another Day In Paradise, sung by Phil Vassar and co-written by Vassar and Craig Wiseman is one of the most poignant and edifying songs that country music ever produced. It's on my iPhone and I listen to it often because it portrays a part of America that was and is still great. There are multitudes of couples getting divorced today because they cannot handle what they perceive as the drudgeries and responsibilities of married life...that the husband and father in this song sums up in this simple refrain thrice repeated...
             I wouldn't trade it for anything.
                   And I ask the Lord every night
                          For just another day in paradise.
          In one way or another, and to one degree or another, we all bear responsibility for the collapse of this once great nation, but faithful trusting fathers such as in this song, and mothers who have prayed every morning, noon and evening for their children, and senior citizens who helped build this once God-fearing nation while never departing over those many years the love of their Lord, and young people who begin this same journey amidst temptations their fathers never knew while being aware of the many trials and difficulties ahead, and many in our military who display the greatest courage and often give that ultimate sacrifice knowing full well that this nation they are defending has rejected the King of Kings...it's these people that God has not forgotten as we head full-steam into a maelstrom that will culminate in an inferno, and it is these folks who will be kept through that maelstrom and be taken up to meet the "Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory."
          As it stands now, these examples are not representative of the whole or even majority of America today, for if it were we would not be under judgement as I write. The consensus of even the patriots of our nation is that God would be more than pleased to see a republican president, pleased enough to restore us to greatness. He would overlook our dalliances with idolatry for a couple of originalist Supreme Court justices. He would rescind his warnings of destruction if we but make a concerted attempt to end our slaughter of the unborn, and He would restore our hegemony in military and economic might if we would only put Jesus back in Christmas.
          Have the majority of Americans moved one inch closer to their Creator in the seven plus years of our Marxist captivity? Has the church moved one inch further way from the culture that mocks God in science and education and its entertainments? What we have accomplished is a renewed respect for our Constitution which is admirable, but we have put the cart before the horse, for that Constitution would not have come about had not God's Word first been consulted and He Himself reverenced.
          We have come to terms with who Barack Hussein Obama is, and who Hillary Rodham Clinton is, and even who the Republican elitist establishment are, but we have not come to terms with who and what we ourselves have become. The television comedy Modern Family could not have survived much less become phenomenally popular without our participation. Sports could have not become the idol it has become without our fanatic support. Greed would not be dominant in the workplace, the education of our children would not have been hijacked, whole professions would not have prostituted themselves, all this and more could not have come about had we not scurried after the crumbs thrown to us.
          Ultimately, the problem is that we cannot see the enormity of our own guilt that has led to God's judgements that are increasing in frequency and intensity. Thus we turn to politics to save us! Donald Trump is our only choice in this coming election... should God even permit us to get there...surely you can see this opinion from these posts...but Donald trump is in need of the Savior more than he needs electoral votes......and as for us.... our 'help' could only come from the Lord Jesus Christ, and that only if our hope is in Him alone!      
      
        

Windows

The following post is from August 27, 2016: 

          America's enemies had a tough time of it during the Reagan years, their woes culminating in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, but Bill and Hillary Clinton signified to them the moral collapse of the once God-fearing United States of America, and therefore its eventual collapse also. The immediate aftermath of 9/11 demonstrated to the world that the great strength of America was still there but with the exception of its military that strength quickly dissipated as the fog in the early morning sun.
          Plan B had already been in progress just in case, germinating long before the Iron Curtain was ripped in two. Saul Alinksy jotted down the plan on cheap napkins from a Depression era Chicago cafeteria. Bill Ayers ghostwrote a script that David Axelrod would parlay into a Palme d'Or and Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Hussein Obama.
          America was kaput...its youth miseducated to the point of cheering for their own executioners, its vaunted freedom of the press humiliated...its members transmogrified into apparatchiks for those they should be exposing, its Constitution catching bird droppings at the bottom of the cage for the lovebirds Narcissism and Ignorance, and its pulpits, that Tocqueville lauded as America's strength, grovelling for the approval of people who get queazy at too much talk of crosses and tombs.
          If there would ever be a time for the communists to play the end game it would be with fellow traveller Barack Obama in America's White House. Or would it? A Hillary Clinton administration might be worth the wait but there would be a risk.....this.....this casino builder Donald Trump.....what if he somehow beat Clinton. Nah...couldn't happen....America's entire UniParty is behind Clinton, and even if Trump won, the voting machines could be....ahem.....'tuned.'
          Anyways, that is where we are now. The Axis powers seem to be chomping at the bit. Things don't look too good for Hillary who may soon be wearing matching chrome bracelets connected by a stainless steel chain. Friends, we know this for certain, the immediate future is rife with ...extreme vexation....yeah, that's a good phrase....extreme vexation.....it brings to mind an avalanche...or a doctor's appointment with The View playing loudly in the waiting room.
          That window of opportunity for America's enemies is closing. If Donald Trump's poll numbers begin to take off, look for a spate of events all too coincidental... and all too foreboding. It is also a window of opportunity for Christians....a window that lets in the fragrance of humility, and the coolness of the night followed by a new day where there is no need for the sun, for we...."will [have] the LORD for an everlasting light..."

Suicide Is Not Painless

         Books have been written about it....Suicide Of A Superpower...and...Suicide Of The West are just two of the titles. The liberal and progressive mind of today drives pedal to the floor into the fog of war....the world a stage and they but dilettantes....dabblers in that which requires wisdom and expertise, the lack of which leads to death through an overdose of tolerance and mutation of diversity. The following post is from August of 2015:


A Song Of Remembrance....And A New Song

          With history as our witness, it is not an anomaly, nor is it inconsistent, nor is it even odd. When a nation or an empire is overrun, destroyed, or even just collapses, it often if not usually happens in what could be called a 'cabaret' or 'gladiator games' culture. Its entertainments had consumed it. In such a society vigilance can be non-existent. We are just such a nation.
          Where did it begin and what precipitated our fall. Well, it began roughly six-thousand years ago in a beautiful garden in what is now the war torn and terror ravaged nation known as Iraq...or that garden could have been almost anywhere before the flood of Noah's day. We are fallen creatures but capable of unlocking mysteries of the world around us. We can visit the moon. We can send a camera through arteries. We can replace a diseased heart with a mechanical pump....for a time anyway. We can carry almost all the information known to man...in our pocket. We can do everything accept make a spray starch aerosol can that won't plug up.....but the Artificial Intelligence that we are about to perfect will have their robots to do that.
           You and I have a front row seat to the fall of the most powerful nation that ever was. Who needs Will Durant or Edward Gibbon or Charles Beard or Josephus? We can watch it on the telly, that is until the telly loses power. Or we can see it on stage. We've already sat through two acts. In Act One we jumped up on the throne with God, and in Act Two we told Him to get off.
            Violence has overwhelmed us in what is now but a long list of nightly news stories that may or may not be noticed. Our intellects have atrophied. The mechanical functions well but we have no wisdom to speak of. Yet we are giddy. Our sports teams win and that's the only international relations that we care about. We are as children who when frightened, the parent places a toy in their hands and the pop-up clown causes us to laugh, the rattle gets our attention and the spinning mobile above our heads puts us back to sleep. We retreat into our enclaves where there is only minimal violence but those enclaves are receding as the snow cover at winter's end.
             Oh, but we had the finest minds at the beginning of this nation! They could reason. Their sentences, written with quill and ink, displayed a magnificent logic. Their conversation, as we read in their letters, was beautiful prose, flowing, didactic and profound. Though shorter on average in stature they towered above us. Amused by their clinging to something called honor, we place them under a microscope and label them worthless if any imperfection at all is found.
             God has given us weak leaders and cunning enemies. The Song Of Moses from the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy was to be a witness against Israel. They would rebel.... and God would remind them of it. Moses wrote....."For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison; their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps."
              But all praise is to be given to Him who, as the Psalmist in Psalm 40 sings, "He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord."

The Battle Of The Monongahela....And The Tribulation

The following post is from April of 2015. The first five paragraphs are only a lead-in to what I'm trying to convey in the last two paragraphs: 

        My father was raised in a small community in Western Pennsylvania called North Braddock, which is on the Monongahela River only a few miles from Pittsburgh. The house that he was raised in was on the site of one of the most important battles ever fought on American soil. Never heard of it? Don't worry, most people living in that area never heard of it either, at least they aren't aware of the significance of it. The battle really doesn't even have a name but is generally known as the Battle Of The Monongahela. George Washington was an aide to General Edward Braddock who was the 'Generalissimo' of all British and American forces in Colonial America, and who was mortally wounded in the battle. Daniel Boone, before he became famous, drove a wagon in service to the British soldiers in the campaign, and many in the campaign fought a few years later on both sides of the American war for independence!
         In the 1750s the French had their sights on the territory west of the Allegheny mountain ranges. The forks of the Ohio River which is Pittsburgh today was a key focal point for their strategy. The British knew this and assembled what would be the largest British military force ever gathered in the colonies, over 2000 British and American soldiers, and put them under General Braddock to drive the French from Fort Duquesne. They, the Braddock Expedition as the force was called, were to hack their way over the mountains and up the Monongahela River. It would turn out to be more than a disaster. The British in their bright red uniforms and the Americans in their blue uniforms crossed the Mon (as we know it in Pittsburgh) just past the Turtle Creek and then shortly after that, to the cadence of the drums, they marched back across the river (it was only knee deep at the time). It was here on the east banks of the river that they were ambushed by the French and Indians.
         Thomas E. Crocker, author of Braddock's March, How The Man Sent To Seize A Continent Changed American History, described the battle as pure pandemonium among the British and Americans, almost 500 of whom died in the battle. The enemy lost only 11! The British would like to forget this battle... one of the worst defeats in their history.... and Americans were not that interested in remembering it either.... but the importance of what happened in that battle cannot be overestimated.
         As a child my father had played on those streets below the bluffs from which the French and Indians had descended upon the British and Americans. My mother went to dances on what was at one time a battlefield, and later met my father at Braddock Hospital where he was recovering from injuries sustained in the Pacific in World War II? She passed away last year but only a few years ago we visited the house that she grew up in which was only yards away from the bluff where one could see most of what had been the battlefield.
         George Washington's reputation as being invincible began at the Battle Of The Monongahela as he survived with bullet holes in his coat and horses shot out from under him, but this post isn't really about George Washington...or the battle itself as history....but rather the battle as a study in chaos and pandemonium. The British and Virginia officers stood their ground but could not bring order to the men who could not see their enemy who hid behind the trees. Many were killed by friendly fire. The British had all the skills and all the knowledge and more than enough firepower but were decimated because chaos was all around them. That is the reason for this post. Christians will one day experience such chaos and pandemonium....and that day may be in the very near future. We need to know this...and we are not being told!
           Mankind hasn't changed. As brilliant as he can be, he can be just as foolish. We read in Scripture about the very last of the last days and think that we have it all down pat. An evil man arises and takes over the world....he demands that everyone have a mark placed on them in order to buy or sell anything.....Christians say no....he kills many of them....and then Jesus Returns. Only it is not going to be as easy as just recognizing the Antichrist and saying no, for just as the British and Americans experienced chaos and pandemonium on the banks of the Monongahela, so will Christians in the great delusion of the last days. Family and friends will be taken in...making it much harder! "This...mark... is just technological progress in a digital age" they'll be told. 'Friendly fire' will be everywhere. Confusion will reign supreme. Friends....we fall for just about anything now...and this deception is minor compared to what the church will one day experience!
          From personal observation of end-times conversations over the past thirty years, and even recollections of my own thoughts when I held to a Pre-Trib Rapture, I don't remember the topic of the Christian experiencing chaos and pandemonium being at or even near the top of the list. That's probably because the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Theory tends to make Christians a little less worried about something they won't even be around to experience. That's the short message of this post...if our Lord's return is near, the pandemonium and confusion ahead may be so great that we may even question our own decisions! Whatever generation experiences this will need to know....beforehand.... what God has written to us about those days.... and discernment does not readily come while while one's main interests and passions are on the baubles of this world and not on God's Word

The Red Carpet Of Delusion

         It would be so easy to purposely ignore what has happened. It wouldn't take much effort because it's almost as if it would be natural, as if the effort would be in the observing what is before our very eyes and not in the ignoring of it. America has collapsed!
         Oh, I know that the rallying cry is 'make America great again,' but as I reflect on that, what comes to mind is an aged actress, once beautiful. At the height of her career she won Oscars and was considered the Queen of Cinema. She chose her roles, and her directors, and co-stars, and film studios and producers were at her beck and call....but the wrinkles came and the makeup had to be applied heavier. The camera itself had to help her out. Time kept moving on and other actresses, just as beautiful as she had been, were getting the best roles, and the awards, and the adulation.
         She would show them. She would show them all! She was still the greatest actress in the entire world. She called in favors and one film studio titan had pity on her and cast her in a role that she was too old for, but no longer would she mesmerize with her beauty...no longer would the allure be sensual.
         We served a purpose. God had moved mountains, continental plates to be precise, to set this land apart from others. He brought to it a people of tremendous fortitude of which He supplied the strength...a people who would worship Him in freedom in a new land. Our purpose was in exalting God and not ourselves. It would be His land.....and for a short time it was.... but many decades would follow, even centuries, and we would see the pagan idolatry all around us and depart from Him who had blessed us so.
         In a way we are today that aging actress. The red carpet that we walk on is the stain of Communism under our feet. Only we too will show them all. We'll show the entire world that are still the greatest. Only we will do it without God this time for He will no longer be our producer and our director. We will direct ourselves and maybe, if we remember, permit Him to come to the premier! But what we will find out real soon is that our greatness was in God Almighty....alone! He favored us with great minds and entrepeneurism and fortitude and courage and invention and a wonderful work ethic....it was He that secured our borders and kept our enemies at bay. It was He that our forefathers bowed down to in prayer and who they put their trust in. It was He who picked us up every time we stumbled.....and it was also He that has been warning us for upwards of seventy years that our rebellion would have severe consequences
         We looked into a big screen and saw an aging God, shriveled up and we perceived the image as ugly. And ugly it was...even grotesque....but it was no silver screen....it was a mirror! May God have mercy upon us as we seek to defeat our enemies in our own might. May He forgive us for not falling down before Him in humility at what has transpired in our nation. May He in fact first take the veil off of our eyes so that we might observe the destruction all around us.... no longer capable of ignoring it...... and that we might again realize that the beauty was His all along!

The Greater Fear

Note:  The following post is from this past June. In two days Britons would go to the polls in a referendum on whether to remain in the European Union or to leave.

        All religions of this earth apart from Christianity address the issue of either salvation or conditions in a future state of being as directly corresponding to how one lives the present life. In common doctrinal terms it would be described as a 'works salvation.' If one is good, God will be fair and reward accordingly, and if one is not good, God will punish accordingly. This reasoning is natural to the human mind. How could one even possibly question such a supposition? But God's Word to man describes something altogether different. Salvation is by grace (alone) through faith (alone) in Christ (alone)!  We ourselves do nothing to merit this salvation...not even our repentance or our faith, for even these are given to us.
       Islam is a religion of works along with all other religions. Here one can work and sacrifice and earn and eventually be rewarded. Christianity is mercy given, regeneration extended and only then is one able to even have faith unto salvation. The immediate reward is in knowing that one is forgiven, and knowing the author of that salvation. The works, necessary as they may be, are offered in thanksgiving for even the opportunity to be of use and to bring rightful glory to the author of all that is good.
       Certain countries in the West fear Islam and Sharia law being forced upon them, for at the very  least their culture would then change,....but there is an even greater fear in these countries....that of a holy God, a fear of God not based on reverence but on pride. If they turn to Him that was the God of their fathers, not only would their cultures change, but the confidence they have in their reasonable religion would be shattered. Consequently they may take their chances with the fast encroaching Islam.
       You may profess confusion here... for the West is Christian isn't it? The West is Christendom...not Christianity. There is no holy God on a throne, rather a name and a book lay on some table nearby, and only a vague memory exists, and it is not valued. This is a hard statement but over a century of invention and progress mixed in with world wars and topped with money and an entertainment culture to spend it on have taken its toll. So it is a conflict between Christendom and Islam with Christianity on the sidelines.
       England ....your journey was long and arduous, fraught with temptations, many of which you succumbed to, but your victories were many. You gave us a standard of honor that although we rebelled to go our own way we had you to thank for our character and Christian faith. You gave us standards in the faith that still rule the minds of Christians all over this world. You are struggling now in your rebellion to God. May He remember those from your past from what is now the United Kingdom, who looked only to Him, who relied only upon Him, and may He draw you to Himself in humility once again.
        Germany....you changed the world. You rescued the Word of God. You uncovered a diadem in 'faith...alone.' You then paid a steep price for turning from Him. May
he give you a Luther to awaken and princes to protect him as He had done before.
        To much of Northern Europe, we owe so much to you. You were the heroes and the defenders of olde. It's from your ports that the pilgrims departed, and from your printing presses that the Bible was distributed in the language of the people. May God renew in you a burning faith. May the smoldering embers that must surely be there ignite the parched faith that once lighted the world and rescue you from darkness of the modern mind.
         O America....you beacon in the darkness, you harbor in a tempest, you flame of liberty, you haven for the persecuted seeking freedom....you have lost your way, your compass is broken, your sails no longer hold the wind, your flag is tattered beyond recognition, your hull is breached, your cargo spoiled, your rudder frozen as your ice-cold heart, your captain incompetent, your ship's officers admiring themselves in mirrors as an enemy ship pulls abreast and lowers its cannon.
          Have you forgotten from whence you came, of whom you always sought guidance, and of whom you relied for your daily bread? Of course you have! That is why you are reeling, why you have no leaders and why your security is compromised. Few of us in America are without blame and I am not one of them. May we read anew the message to the church at Ephesus and harken to its command to return to our first love that we had before we even became a nation unto ourselves. If we now believe that we will be rewarded for our 'good works' then we will be as all the rest who labor in vain, who rely on ourselves apart from faith in Jesus Christ, and whose end will be quick and final.

The Images With Which We Are So Familiar

          The valley stretched from the lower San Fransisco Bay area to San Jose and was mostly beautiful fruit orchards. John Arrillaga and his partner bought the land and developed it into what is today known as Silicon Valley, home of Facebook, Google, Apple and many others giant corporations. It's also a venture investment center. The San Andreas fault passes directly under it.
          Sheryl Sandberg is the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Facebook. I just now finished reading a new book titled Chaos Monkeys, Obscene Fortune And Random Failure In Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez. The author was a young startup honcho in Silicon Valley and he details the corporate culture as problematic in its lack of ethics, a characteristic seemingly intrinsic for success in the business. It's a little bit over half of the book of nearly 500 pages until the author finally winds up at Facebook as a project manager. Sheryl Sandberg is thus one of the main characters in the latter half of the book. Just today Breitbart reported, from released Wikileaks, a comment she had made to John Podesta that she "very badly" wanted Hillary Clinton to win the presidency.
          I read a couple of these corporate insider books every year but it only took me about a millisecond to put this one under my arm after seeing that this was mostly about Facebook, for I've written numerous posts over the years on my extreme concern, and that to say the very least, on social media and particularly Facebook. The language in the book is very rough. The author was more brutally honest in describing himself and his own actions than that of any of the other characters in the book. He's likable yet very unlikable at the same time.
          Corporate America, much of it anyway...way too much of it, seems to have slid off into the netherworld of profit over humanity but the author focuses on a different problem....something he is an expert in....profits over ethics. He describes employees in this megalith of a corporation as being indoctrinated that they are now an elite corps of visionaries that are changing the world, but at the same time they are not informed that they also have been conscripted into a corporate security force of sorts where they take on the characteristics of guardians whose devotion to the cause overrides the everyday discernment that they probably had prior to indoctrination. This will be a typical post of mine in that it is not long and detailed. I attempt to put a concept in the readers mind and hope that it germinates on its own.     
          Antonio Garcia Martinez takes the reader first, and only for a short time, into the financial sector of corporate America, and then into the meetings and interviews of a Silicon Valley company startup, and finally into the heart of the behemoths themselves, primarily Facebook but also Twitter and Google.
          Many of these behemoths are centered entirely around a single person of extraordinary power. Mark Zuckerberg is certainly one. That person then acquires followers, in this case personal success is the initial lure whereas in a typical religious cultic environment, a topic of which I am well versed and knowledgeable, spiritual elitism is the draw. One then comes to believe in the founder in spite of any misgivings one might normally have had. The author describes this zealous devotion in similar terms.
          In Christianity, in what are known as 'Christian cults' (Christian in name but denying the very foundations of Christianity), what is needed is a strong and vigilant defense of the Christian faith. Transfer this to corporate America and what is needed is a strong and vigilant defense of the foundations of the nation that the corporation operates within, in this case a defense of the American creed and the Constitution and its once firm belief in God and His written Word.
          In the former....take away sound biblical knowledge and you wind up with a false prophet and a false religion. In the latter.....take away sound constitutional original intent and you wind up with a borderless, globalism comprised of corporations.... not congresses and liberty and freedom and not even the rule of law. This is where we are heading! The blurb on the book's jacket cover ends with this sentence...."Chaos Monkeys lay bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, how will we survive?"  This trend for a global corporate government, along with all the images and corporate logos that we are so familiar with seeing, will be the future for most; but the written word, in particular the written Word of God, will be the future for others. I'll leave you with that.

Political Manuring

      All things considered....it's a farce. Let me describe the set and the scene: The Trump people are outwardly saying that the polls may not look good but they're going to keep on trying. The Clinton people are saying that they are not overconfident, and that they are not now concentrating more on the Congressional elections. Some might call this nonsense political maneuvering but I prefer to refer it as political manuring and here's why:
      Forget the polls because they are so purposely tweeked as to be almost useless...not totally useless for you could probably add 5 to 7 points for Trump and be in the ballpark....but they certainly are not useful as accurate pre-election polls. If future polls state that Trump is up by 5%...then he is probably up by 10%! The Trump people....those at the very top....should know this....but they have chosen to appear as if the polls are accurate as a strategy.
      The Clinton people...those few at the very top....know that Hillary could not even come close in an honest election. This doesn't particularly bother them because they're not really campaign strategists.....they are sting strategists.... and all kinds of scams are already in place and functioning. They have allies in this sting operation just about everywhere on the globe.
      Here's one victory that the Clinton people have already achieved.....Hillary is considered to be a legitimate candidate. She is not. By all rights she should now be huddled with her lawyers preparing for any one of a number of charges brought against her by the government, and this if she would not just now be getting out of jail for past crimes going back decades. She literally stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders....yet she still is held up to us as not only a legitimate candidate, but the favorite! Does anyone still in possession of their mental faculties think that this will be a fair election?
       As depressing as this is, it gets worse, much much worse. Yeah, on paper Donald Trump could get the economy back on track, protect our borders, restore our Constitution and strike fear into our enemies. Everything that he says is sound and wise.....this isn't the problem....the problem is that these many and varied enemies of ours have a window of opportunity in Barack Obama and it's almost inconceivable to me that they would not take advantage of it, while the globalist one-worlders are about as likely to sit by and watch Donald Trump become president as they would be to open up a Bible.
        Let's say that in spite of the fix that Donald Trump wins anyway. This is not only possible, it has to be the real underlying hope of the Trump strategists. That would leave two and a half months until the inauguration for desperation measures to be put into effect by all of our enemies.....probably united by then.
        As depressing as this is, it gets worse, much much worse. God....you remember Him don't you....He created the world and the universe and everything that is....He has been giving us the very same warning for seven decades that He had long ago given to rebellious Israel and Judah. We ignored Jonah in Billy Graham and now Nahum has been sent to us....and there is no 40 day warning!
       As depressing as this is.....it gets better, much much better! None of this has taken God by surprise, none of this threatens His plans, all of this will lead to His glory filling the entire earth! Will Donald Trump win or will our enemies steal the election? Either way will be by God's consent and neither way would change what His plans are for us and the world. Jesus Christ...the Alpha and the Omega....is returning! This political window of opportunity for our enemies may still be open, but....upon the glorious return of Jesus Christ....the King of Kings....Satan's window of opportunity will be slammed shut!

Who's Reading These Posts

          Only occasionally do I review the viewing statistics for these posts, with the exception of the number of new visitors who are interested enough to go to my profile which I do check often. With a little help from my calculator I was surprised today to see that the percentage of visits to these posts from viewers outside of the United States has gone up considerably over the past few months to about 45% of the total page views. How do I interpret that? My initial impression is that people outside of the United States are more perceptive of our collapse than we are, and that they are far enough away from the collapse to see just how extensive it is, and that they are not encumbered by a false confidence that America cannot fall or that politics can redeem us, and when I write about Communism they know what it is, and maybe....just maybe....when I write about the Bible being the most wonderful possession on this earth....they don't write it off as....I've heard all this before? The following is a much older post tihat summarizes the topics of these posts:

          As I look over five and a half years of posts (now eight years), most of them remain as relevant as if written today. Some indeed are topical but the central themes are the same.....America, prepare to meet thy God.....America is in the midst of a coup.....social media dumbs down an already reality intolerant American mind.....the American Christian church believes itself to be healthy but it is mistaken........concerning politics and government... there is little difference between the establishment wing, or the the elites of the Republican Party, and the Democrat Party, both of which truly serve only the secular ruling class of this world.......and to Europe and other nations of this world..... if we lose this fight, you lose also!
         As for the Christian posts and message, they can be summarized as.....they don't come any weaker or more unworthy than me.....today is the day for your salvation, not tomorrow......there is no more precious object on this earth, no more valuable possession, than that book gathering dust on the second shelf of your bookcase next to Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Danielle Steel or any one of such authors who you can read forty-five minutes every night before bed.....and......the majesty, the power and the glory of Jesus Christ is such that the closer you get, the more you know your need of Him as both Lord and Savior, the more you see His righteous judgement, the more thankful you are for His mercy, and the more fleeting this world and its baubles appear!

66 Years Old....Going On 51

         Recently retired and wondering what to do when my eyes open at 4:55 in the morning, I thought that I might look into completing a Masters Degree that I started 16 years ago. After discussing the requirements with the appropriate college administrator it occurred to me that it might seem odd to her that at 66 years old I wanted to complete a Masters Degree.
        The concept of age hadn't entered my mind.....and that's because in my mind I'm in my early 50s. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I look like I'm in my early 50s or even that I feel like I'm in my early 50's because I do not. What I am saying is that I quite naturally view life along with its challenges and opportunities as a 50 year old would. Why might this be?
         Let me eliminate some possibilities. As I said, it's not as if I feel like a 50 year old....I feel like a 66 year old....like a 50 year old who feels like a 66 year old. Another possible reason might be that I didn't mature until I was in my early 30s....so having started late I may actually be on my biological schedule. Another reason might be that our son didn't come along until I was 36 years old, so having a young son through my 40s and 50s may have kept me feeling younger.
         These indeed are possibilities but I know very well what the real reason is that I see myself as a 50 year old even though I'm 66 years old. Get ready...and take notes...There is no more genuine fountain of youth than the living waters of Jesus Christ! There is no excitement as that of getting closer each and every day to the Celestial City. There is nothing that can put a bounce in your step more than thoughts of forgiveness, mercy and redemption running through your mind. There is no exhilaration as that of giving a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no walking as healthy as taking the good news to someone who has never heard or never understood it. There is no food as replenishing as the Word of God, and there is no drug as powerful as faith, no vitamin as renewing as hope and no spa as comforting as the love of God.
     

The Martian.....And Me

         Well I'm sitting here on a Saturday evening watching The Martian on DVD....a little late I guess as most have probably seen it already.....and guess what is going through my mind? The main protagonist is stranded on Mars. A violent sandstorm came out of nowhere. The mission was aborted and all but one astronaut escaped the planetary storm, and headed home certain that their colleague died before their departure......and I'm thinking about the pulpits all across America!
          Now those of you who have read these posts for a while are probably not all that surprised as to where my mind is. To those first-timers....welcome to my world.... of which I will try to convince you that it is your world also.
          Matt Damon.....I'll use his real name....survived....and is calculating how much freeze dried food he has left. He's thinking about a lot of other things also that are directly related to his survival. He gets to work immediately. Being a botanist, he uses his numerous skills in trying to turn the Martian soil into a farm. With music in the background He checks his emergency food, makes mistakes, talks to himself, calls himself stupid, and then presses on with his mission. That sounds a lot like me....except for the numerous skills of course.
         Let me tie some things together. A mega-storm is headed not only to us in America but the entire world. How do I know this? My brain had deleted the Steeler app over two decades ago. That football app....Pittsburgh model.....takes up the most space in the human mind in America. I thus can meditate upon and study the world news without that sports window constantly coming up.
         Let me give you an example.....just one out of dozens if not hundreds.....China needs at least an 8% growth in its GDP in order to keep its experiment with state-controlled capitalism functioning thereby staving off a revolution which could lead to a military (Communist) takeover....and very possibly a war with the West. Oops there's that pop-up....the Steelers are on the Raven's 10 yard line with 30 seconds left and down by four points.....Rothlisberger drops back....is forced out of the pocket...scrambles to his right....finds a receiver in the end zone.....touchdown.....yes....yes....yes...! Now where  was I....China....I forgot what I was thinking about!
         Friends, maybe I reduced this problem to a ridiculously low denominator but I did so for effect, and I have numerous idols of my own that hinder my discernment.....but the reality is that the problems we face are insurmountable.....this isn't defeatism......it is rather acknowledging that when  God..."(gives) them up to their own desires...." disaster is the only possibly ending.  This is not a long process. We're not taking about a thousand years...or a hundred years....or even decades. The unravelling is quick.
         Tomorrow is the Lord's Day. May God speak to us through his shepherds once again as He has in times past....as when Luther stared the establishment down at the Diet at Worms....as when William Tyndale and John Hooper and Rowland Taylor and Hugh Latimer and John Bradford and Nickolas Ridley gave their lives so that the common man could read what we often grudgingly give a half an hour a week to read. May He, through His Holy Spirit, spit in the dust of this earth and rub the mud on our eyes so that we might see....and open our ears that we might hear....and most importantly.....free the tongues of these preachers that will ascend their pulpits tomorrow that they might warn their sheep of the day and age that we live in. May we pray as in the Apostle Paul's words from the book of Romans.....that..."Somehow, by God's will".... He will awaken us all!
         Coincidentally The Martian just ended! Spoiler Alert! Do not read any further if you have not seen the film.......Matt Damon survives and the film ends with him teaching astronauts in training how to survive. He warns them that there will be problems.....and when they happen....get to work in solving them! His character and I differ just a little bit here....yes.....get to work right now. Grow your food with this in mind from the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John 4:34-35...."My food is to do the will of God, who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'there are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest...."

Mad Scientists

I'm bringing this older post back because it's on the topic of Communism. I like to address Saturday posts to college students so I'll leave this up for only a few hours. Following this is a post on Colin Kaepernick. Here is an example of communism at work....find the perfect dupe (Colin Kaepernick) and use their ignorance to relentlessly attack America's heritage at one of its weakest points.....in this case students.....divide.....divide.....divide.....and then accuse the other side of causing division!!!

         Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, Americans are going to take Communism seriously, understand what it is, and regret not having heeded the warnings earlier! It has no head, not even a titular head, in fact those that still claim the moniker tend to be the less important, those being 'Communist Parties' in various countries, even our own. The exception to this of course is the five remaining countries that are in fact officially Communist, those being China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos, but even they are hangers-on, albeit well-established and dangerous hangers-on, and not the impetus for revolutions they once were. (note: The front page of yesterdays Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a photo of three smiling men holding hands and smiling victoriously...Barack Obama...and the Prime Ministers of both Vietnam and Laos)
         No, Communism is more than a political, economic or societal ideology. It is an organism....more of a bacterium actually. It is parasitic. It is pathologic. It has been in human nature since the fall of man. It does express itself though in economics, in societies and mostly in government in the form of utter tyranny.
         Karl Marx did not start this although he codified a lot of what it has become. Lenin nurtured it in the lab in its first incubation. Stalin and Mao were famines that resulted from this incubation and Barack Obama is the mad scientist bringing this plague back to life. Now I'm not a bacteriologist or microbiologist, I'm not even slightly conversant in these fields and I'm sure that any critiques you might have on my few words so far are correct. I use the terms only to convey the idea that Communism is a disease of the human condition.
           Communists have no real concern nor compassion concerning those they attach themselves to as a leech on a leg. They use minorities, the poor and illegal immigrants to further their own goals. They don't just conquer their enemies...they crush them. They have no God, no conscience and no ethics to hamper their style. Their strategies are both sophisticated and brutish. They are patient to the extreme in developing unrest in a targeted nation but strike like a cobra when it is time. They are masters of infiltrating the nerve centers of a culture and a society. They targeted our entertainment industries, our educational system and unions and were highly successful in all three. When Wisconsin Democrat Senator Joe McCarthy, who was correct in his assessments, proved to be fallible as any other person, they destroyed him through their cadres of unwitting dupes and have distorted his legacy into a Soviet hammer and sickle to pound into submission and cut down any attempts to bring up communism for over half a century.
           Man-made global warming is a pantheistic hysteria commandeered by the Left to seriously injure the stronger capitalist societies. Have you heard this news story....probably not, for this type of news rarely makes it past the censors. From The Daily Caller..."In 2008, Dr. Ivar Giaever joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorsing Barack Obama. At a recent Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting he said "I would say that basically global warming is a non-problem" that Obama's statement "no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change" is "ridiculous." He added..."I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you're wrong. Dead wrong." Professor Giaever questioned the science and policies of climate change and referred to it as a "new religion."  He was thus relegated to the unwashed masses of climate deniers who dare to actually challenge the pantheist celebrants.
         Communism today will continue to play this game of obfuscate and deceive, but this is not their end game, for their end game is attack and destroy. That is why I started this post out with.....'Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, Americans are going to take Communism seriously, understand what it is, and regret not having heeded the warnings earlier!"

Colin Kaepernick....You Have Been Duped  (September 8th, 2009)

         NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has determined that he will remain seated during the playing of the national anthem before games because, as he sees it, the anthem honors a country that oppresses black people and people of color. Like so many others, he has been lied to and then bought into that lie. This is the communism that few are concerned about, a communism whose near century long mission has been to destroy our American heritage in order to bring about chaos and pave the way for totalitarianism.
          Black people are not oppressed as Mr. Kaepernick charged. Merriam-Webster defines 'oppress' as "to treat (a person or group of people) in a cruel or unfair way." The more accurate word would be...repressed...."kept under control by force," and this not by America but by those who despise what our flag and our anthem truly represents! This is the crime of today! Colin Kaepernick's outrage is legitimate but misunderstood and misplaced, directed at America where it should be directed at those who are trying to destroy America.
          The reader might object to my statement that blacks are not oppressed in that this young man is black and I am not... shouldn't he have a better understanding of this? On most things...yes...on this issue...no! Blacks at one time were oppressed...to America's great shame. Tens of thousands of Americans died carrying our flag into heavy canister shot to rid us of slavery, and many more worked tirelessly to eliminate Jim Crow laws.
          Mr. Kaepernick....Communism, Progressivism, and all of their dupes of which you are now rubbing elbows with, have repressed black communities for the better part of a century for their own nefarious gain. They lie to you and condescend to you to a despicable degree. They want you to do exactly what you have chosen to do with your actions and comments.  I've been lied to also young man, most recently by the elite establishment types in the Republican Party who try to repress the opinion of anyone who does not buy into their continuous schemes that serve only to perpetuate their power. Oppression is indeed rearing its ugly head but it is directed to anyone, of any color, who refuses to cede to these usurpers all of their God-given rights and constitutional liberties.
        There are hundreds of thousands of marked graves, carefully manicured in our nation, that represent sacrifice against an enemy that you just aided and abetted through your ignorance. There are thousands of unmarked makeshift graves in Europe, and on rocky beaches in the Pacific, and in the dense jungle of Vietnam and rocky terrain of Korea, and many other foreign soils, and thousands more watery graves whose sacrifices represent what you chose to dishonor.
         Hey, I was about as confused as you at your age.....and not nearly as talented although old friends have reminisced on how I could throw a football in my teens. I thank God that nothing ever came of it for there are few things as pitiful, in my opinion anyway, than a grown man making millions running over the goal line with a football in front of a rapt audience that could exceed tens of millions, on the Lord's Day no less, and then pointing to heaven! At least you have an intellectual passion, grossly misdirected as it my be at this stage.
        Go back to your roots young man, and I'm not referring to Africa. You have the intellect...put it to use! Recalculate your blessings and from whence they came. Consider again your own tattoos and think about adding another...."Romans 12:2"...Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.