Antiphon

Antiphon

            Satan's greatest weapon is discouragement. As long as we have a reasonable expectation for the way things will turn out, we maneuver very well in this world driven by the necessities of living. It is the unexpected that make the difference. When we go somewhere we hope to arrive there without problems, flat tires, trains on tracks across highways, etc. Interruptions from sickness, actions, problems which complicate our day, add stress and often despair to our lives.

            Many men who put on their socks this morning, a mortician took them off at night. This blind man handles things adequately, until the unexpected. The picture above shows my shoes on this date and, going to one of my buildings, talking with tenants, visiting with friends at a restaurant, employees, no one noticed that I had on two different shoes. So much for our importance. If you think you are important, try sticking your thumb into a pan of water and taking it out. I noticed long ago that dead family members were so soon forgotten, even though they had spent their entire lives contributing to the world....certainly their own families.

            I so remember my grandfather, father of nine children, important in his community. He died and his funeral was held on Christmas Day. So many in the family and else ware, troubled that he would pick Christmas to die...interfering with the holiday spirit. One must be willing and ready to deal the unexpecteds of life. It is the unexpected involved in the stock market that cause most of us to keep from making much money, and so it is with real estate and those involved in the recent bubbles, .com, housing market, bailout market, know what it is to lose. You do not always buy low and sell high. If there were no unexpecteds in life, we could predict everything, not only financially but spiritually as well. Life is totally unpredictable. This week, just one block from my house, 19-year-old young man, college student, working a part time job, killed on the way to his car after work for $10 dollars and a sandwich. Four young people (one as young as 17), are accused of his murder. Think of the heartbreak-trauma of his family, a promising young person. (http://www.wwaytv3.com/news_tags/murder). My city, same city, nearby, another man murdered while delivering Chinese food, five young murders (ages 14-17), eating the food then rummaging through his clothing after killing him. (http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20120621/ARTICLES/120629929). This delivery driver had migrated to this country seeking a better life.

            This week, nation withering-sobering with the news of the senseless killing of 20 children, six and seven years of age, their teachers, etc. at Sandy Hook elementary, Newtown, CT. There is a media frenzy about the killing of these beautiful children by a homegrown terrorist. The President, crocodile tears, making a spectacle of himself ("God called these children home")  before the world...even the worst of us, who know that he has no empathy for the 3,000, the most innocent of life that are killed each and every day in abortion clinics. He supports that along with his political party. He supports the evil of same sex marriage, along with his political party.

            Man had it made, garden of Eden, everything free of trials-tears. All man had to do was just OBEY. God established his rights, his sovernty, with just one tree. He told them, DON'T TOUCH IT. Satan, a created being, kicked out of Heaven, slithered into the garden, tempted and caused our first parents to chose the spirit of death instead of the spirit of life. Is it not significant that their first two children, Cain and Abel, Cain killed his brother Abel? And so it has always been...the ruin-heartbreak of sin. God first destroyed them all except eight souls (4,090 BC). From Or of the Chaldees, he started over with Abrahaam, then Isaac, then Jacob, the remarkable history of one people (Acts 7:4). Bible history, like all history, punctuated by killing. Some of The Bible's greatest characters killed and were killed. We think of Moses who killed an Egyptian, David who not only killed Goliath but killed Uriah, husband of Basheba. Later, David's son Absolan (considered one of the world's most beautiful men-no imperfection), tried to kill his father to gain control of the thrown. 184,000 Assyrian's killed one night by one of God's angels, and think of the thousands killed by a death angel in Egypt, think of the millions killed in wars, and so it goes on until this very day. WWI started with a murder. War is no longer up close and personal, killing one another with swords and bayonets.  Now, drones drop bombs on the most innocent. However, still 30,000 are killed by blunt force instruments (knifes), each year, many thousands more by bullets. Such is the nature of mankind. Technology has changed the world but the nature of man has not changed.

            Academia teaches us that there is some good in the worst of us, some bad in the best of us but, with the carnal-callous killings of young beautiful children in the school house, that person is nothing but evil. In the grace of free will which God gave us and even the purveyors of natural law believe we were all born with a conscience, perhaps a great number were left out. We have lost the wars against poverty, drugs, terror, many believe that it is left up to the mental health people to clean up this mess....that all people with mental problems should be government housed. Has anyone stopped to realize that if all the rejects of society (already 2 million in prison), are housed and cared for, it will take the remainder of the population to guard, clean, cook, test them?

            Ours is a spiritual problem, sins ruin and Christ redemption. God gave us all the answers we need but the politically correct-psychology tainted-Communist media, will never accept God's plan. When a shepherd had a sheep that was always straying, would not behave, he would break the leg of the sheep so the sheep could not walk and then would carry that sheep on his shoulder close to him. (You notice pictures of Jesus carrying a sheep on his shoulder.) Once the leg heels, the sheep can join the flock, that sheep never strays again, stays close to the shepherd.