Ash Wednesday

For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:19) Next week, Christians all over the world will observe Ash Wednesday, preceding Lent and Easter. This is a time when a priest, a minister, or even laymen of the church signifies, by marking with ashes or dust, the cross on your forehead...your Christian belief. It follows the ancient Biblical act of throwing ashes or dust over the head at the time of repentance. If you have seen ashes on one's forehead, you can know that the person is Catholic. Most Protestants, especially Baptists, have moved so far from the blessed acts of Christian belief that they do not want ashes on their forehead. Most ceased from using a reference to ashes, even at the burial ceremony...the officiating minister throwing dirt or ashes onto the casket before it is lowered into the ground. I have been in many Baptist churches where you never see a cross. Most evangelical churches are not distinguishable from a civic auditorium, the indifference which time and modernity can accomplish under Satan's guile and guidance.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross. The greatest mystery of my long life: how those that profess the salvation of God through Jesus Christ are so indifferent, in many cases acting as though they are ashamed of their redemption? I can remember as a child, grown men with families in the church, standing outside the church in the churchyard, smoking cigarettes, laughing and telling jokes, evidently thinking about anything but what went on in the house of worship. When the music started in the church, they would go in and sit with the family, pretending. Later, when I was active in the local church, I would see grown men of the church, standing on the sidewalk, often in the agnostic preacher's presence, talking about ball games. Caring nothing for what went on in God's house, during the week, or even while they were practicing their religion for one hour on Sunday. From the richest man in town, living on the hill, to the pauper scrounging for survival in the bowelry of the town. God meets all needs at the foot of the cross.

Another mystery in my long life, the greatest power known to man, the power of prayer, talking directly with the Creator of the universe. Available instantaneously, just for the asking, whether pervert or Pope. Throughout His Word, God was very specific in His plan for humanity. God is all forgiving, all knowing, unconditional. During Lent, Christians often give up something, something they like, thinking always of what Christ gave up for them. We try to do something that is not always convenient, a service to others. The spirit of Lent, the spirit of Easter, it hurts so good.

I believe what I say, I eat my own cooking. I would be much more popular as a writer, more popular with neighbors, in business, particularly with lost family members and relatives (and most of them are eternally lost), if I were not sincerely adamant in my Christian faith. Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and most people I know, even family and church members, cling to that broad way.

I said to my mother's sister, “your mother, my grandmother had the greatest prayer life I have ever known.” My aunt said, “what do you mean?” She had lived around her mother and had never observed. “Didn't you notice she always had her elbow on the arm of the chair, with her hand to her forehead, her lips moving in prayer?” If you are not praying one hour a day, your salvation is in question. You are just playing church, thinking you can fool God. You think the IRS knows much about you. God knows more about you than you know about yourself, the very hairs of your head are numbered (Matthew 10:30, Luke 12:7)

Your personal prayer life, prayer vigils with others, the greatest act of Christian obedience, fasting, will keep you close to the cross, the power of the cross. (Psalm 35:13) The verisimilitude of the cross, power beyond comprehension. Most church members, most people of religiosity want to treat Christian faith as a spectator sport, not for conservatives, not for sophisticates. Men are staying boys for much longer, loving toys. Women have forgotten the dreams of their girlhood: babies, families, pretty things, nice homes. Today's men and women grab for the good times, the fast bucks. In this day of abortion and same-sex marriage, the greatest sound to mortal ears, children laughing and singing. Please pray for the mercies of God on a generation that has been given so much just for the asking but choose to live in despair, decadence and despondency.

Black girls tell me that they simply cannot find a black husband because most black boys drop out of school, have no values. A black educated women from a loving, respectable black family sees no future with a school dropout. There was a time when a black man with a vocation would support a family. Many black men have a total intoxication with illegalities: drugs, scams, politics. There is nothing more heathen than socialism and communism, from the White house, to the jailhouse, courthouse, schoolhouse, and even many black and white church houses. Satan (master magician) has slipped in, and his agenda is in play. In my lifetime, I have seen the sovereign power of God degraded.

I remember the first plastics. Who would ever have known that from those first plastic book covers, laundry covers, we would have leeching into every area of our food life, the chemicals of plastic? I cannot get far from the front door, I am totally blind, but I buried a plastic cup in the ground near my front door. A few years later I dug it up, it had not deteriorated at all. It will deteriorate with heat, however, and you drink its chemicals from your hot plastic cups of coffee, our food in plastic containers in the microwave, etc. Your child does not have a chance, plastic bottles, plastic cribs, plastic toys, plastic everything, and then people still say, “Dr. Morris why is there so much cancer, Alzheimer's”...your body is full of toxicity, poisons that will kill you.

What is the value of your life? In 1970, when gas prices went up, speed limits were lowered, lives were saved, in the usual cycle, gas prices went back up, more lives were lost. There is a price on your life in healthcare, warfare, industry. Everything is measurable, make sure you measure accurately, take full measure of what Christ paid for your life, his giving to you a praying heart. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens...All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again (Ecclesiastes 3:1,22)