Amateur Hour

Major Bowes Amateur Hour started first on a Broadway stage and then on a radio New York program in 1934. It featured wannabe stars, some very good, some very poor. If poor enough, a gong would sound and the performer was dragged off stage. Later, in 1976 a show closely resembling Major Bowes' show aired on television called The Gong Show. This lasted a few years and, again, those who could perform went on to bigger and better things. Perhaps the recent American Idol resembles these early talent shows.

Many times, I wanted to apologize to my early patients because, believe me, as educated and good as I was, I have already forgotten more than I knew then or most professionals know now. I would also like to apologize to many of the “Saints of God” who listened to me patiently in the pulpit or at the lectern in my early years of public speaking. Many times, I would speak at several places a day on weekends. I thought I knew something back then, but I know more now, and have forgotten more than most of today's speakers can estimate. I realize I was talking about scripture to those who knew and had experienced more than I had at the time, but they were generous with their attention and their attitude.

I remember very well, one church asked me how much I charge to speak. I said, “I will pay your church to listen to me”. I never made a charge for a public appearance, God has been too good to me to charge for my blessings. I simply return a check, and write on it, “Use this amount you have given to me for God's glory in a blessing somewhere else”. Much to my sorrow, I learned that I was a purveyor and no one wants to hear the truth anymore. On the speaker circuit, on radio, TV, etc., itching ears want to hear lies. Joel Osteen is an amateur entertainer. Robert Schuller is an old man talk show host. Both will be accountable to God for the insipid, diabetic ambiguity they proffer as religious entertainment.

The greatest amateur performance in the world today is taking place in the Oval Office. Here, we have a man as commander-in-chief, who probably never shot a BB gun, knows nothing of warfare, military strategy, or even the world's political geography. He is the first man in history to get a Nobel Prize for doing nothing. When the unemployment rate reaches 30% in 2 years, when there is hunger in the streets, when the Muslim and Communist hordes are having a “Yalta” type meeting to carve up what is left of this country, those of you of the “hope and change” variety will see the results of amateurs...amateur in the White House, amateur as Secretary of State, amateur as Secretary of Defense and, God have mercy on all of us, a deceitful amateur at Justice, at Federal Reserve and in charge of your health care (an estimated 23% of doctors will quit practicing, next year you will be taxed for government health care which will not begin for 3 years and 19 million of those the monster is attempting to cover, will not be covered).

In Army hospitals, many years ago, I saw surgeons “butcher” patients. IT IS ONLY BECAUSE THE BODY HAS A REMARKABLE ABILITY TO HEAL ITSELF THAT MOST OF US HAVE SURVIVED AMATEURS. David Livingston, famed missionary to Africa, heart buried in Africa, his body brought back to Westminster, once wrote to Christians in Scotland, “Please send some missionaries to help me”. The head of the church in Scotland wrote back, “We need to know which roads to take to where you are”. Livingston wrote back, “If they need a road, they need not come”.

The disasters, consequences in Afghanistan, the felonious knowledge of fake correspondence of global warming, the insidious financial debauchery, wherein the sweating, God-fearing, tax paying, lowly citizens are bailing out and bonusing the conglomerate hierarchy who have looked down their nose at us. The know-it-all scientists on whom we depended for acrid integrity, the charlatan ministers who we have depended upon for spiritual integrity, have passed on their birthright for a mess of pottage (government grants with a parameter of political correctness).

Science research from communist countries is considered tainted because it is bought and paid for by perverted money. Science from Christian institutions, bio-ethical science, science from a predominate racial group, science from a homosexual or social agenda...all these are considered perverted science...polluted and infected by their own agenda. I may be wrong, but I want my physician to be right, I may be wrong, but I want my scientists, my pastor, my government, to be right.

It will take a long time for science, politics, religion, even the world, to recover from the global attempt at destruction by those on whom we had depended for stability, knowledge, preparation, and above all, integrity and purity of purpose.

The amateur President, who has never done one honest days work in his life, who has never run a lemonade stand, who will probably send his legions from ACORN to your house with a weapon to seize anything you have left in your pockets. One who knows nothing about health care, the pseudo-science of vaccinations, wants to immune you against H1N1 (if one vaccination is good, why not take two, which should be even better). He is using your health, the money you have left, your innate patriotism, to brainwash your mind and bring you, slowly but surely, into a sedated paroxysm of servitude and enslavement.

Sound the Gong!