Need For Good Answers

#1776

"From bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great  courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance  to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy,  from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." - Alexander Tyler

            Churches and governments have fallen into the anti-Christ trap. The horror pit into which the world has fallen, technocracy and the control which god has allowed Satan to hold on to worlds activities. When a telephone in your hand becomes a personality, when person hood of groups becomes supernatural reality (Alcoholics Anonymous, vegans , workmen-ship and security of robots.) The human genome must, if any intelligence left at all, fall upon the alter of humility and seek good answers on every direction of the sun dial. Obfuscation, a confused, bewildered, stupefied world population. Most just going through the motions of living. There is more to life than just surviving... eating, drinking, sleeping, exercising... the essentials to maintain homeostasis-physiology-cytology. Even the Christian, "joint heir" ("And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together" Romans 8:17,) with the creator of the universe have no idea of what it means to have the wealth-resources-comfort of a daily "breathing activity" with the one who threw the stars into space, measures the Himalayas with his fingers, so cares for us, that the very hairs on our head are numbered (Luke 12:7). What a constellation, such an answer for your depression, sleepless-ness, troubled mind.

            IF, as truly chosen, drawn of God, you would study the answer book. In Numbers 29, we find how the old testament, chosen of God, gave ceremonial sacrifices to God. We do not find that they questioned anything, why the unblemished animals of their flocks: why definite measures a flower: why definite goats or rams: why such waste such animals going up in smoke (a sweet savor to God) when probably in a wilderness of destitution, some human beings were hungry. In today's world, the new testament world, we would "compromise" that this sweet savor smoke gets into Gods eyes and he might miss a count. Surely, in today's world, the priest organizing the sacrifice, burnt offerings, might see a particularly tasty looking piece of liver. Would God really miss that?

            Thousands of years later, still, believing Jews, still celebrate "feasts of trumpets." Even in fancy, tall, New York buildings where orthodox Jews live... you still have limbs and tree branches built on to their decks where they sleep under the stars... remembering their ancient family who memorialized their redemption from slavery in Egypt and their humbling in the wilderness AND so many of you do not understand this writers despondency over new testament church members who do not have the time or salvation to observe our Lord's table. If your redemption-Christian experience is worth anything, it is worth everything and this is the most important question of your life. Old testament, believers, were serious about their ties and their offerings. God did not get "tips." God was not just a "bell hop." Prayer was not just a ritual.

            You do not get the answers to your problems or the worlds problems from talking boxes. Most people, with whom I come in contact, are materialistic in every way. Their world evolves money and what money can do. For those who are poor, usually their spending is more than their income... besieged on every hand, on every point on that sun dial, by the Madison avenue concept of keeping you dissatisfied with your world, your living conditions, your clothing, your transportation, your lifestyle. Movies, television, keep us all wanting lives of the "rich and famous." Hell will be filled with the rich and famous. This writer still remembers those saints of old, always in Gods house to worship (not to see and be seen.) Only one Sunday dress apparel-Sunday shoes. Most citizens of 80 years ago, when I was a child, never had but one Sunday outfit. Food was so scarce, exercise so essential, that you kept the same waistline your entire life. You kept your clothes nice and you were usually buried in them. Spring time, your winter clothing, like the bedding, went on the clothes line outside, so Gods good sunlight could detoxify rich resourcefulness of detoxification. Clothing lasted because, like

everything else in your life, you were taught to take care of things. We did not live in a Kleenex-disposable society. I still remember the day when my father and I were moving lumber and a big fat poisonous snake was curled up under a plank. My father killed the snake with a shovel, even though a rifle was close by. "We do not waste bullets." I remembered this many times when as a field grade army officer, I saw so much ammunition wasted, which your tax dollars had paid for. The time for role playing has ended. The time for assuming character on stage is over... church house, school house, court house, even your house. Destination is determined by character. True character, not just role playing on stage, is essential when looking for answers. The scientists looking into the microscope-telescope, forgets the letters after his name-his own ambitions. If a true scientist, he seeks answers.

How Low Is Low?

#1775

How low is low?


I still remember as a child, the preacher in our old country church (built by my great grandparents in 1874, both maternal and paternal) preaching on the subject "how high is up?" He said that he had got the topic from a magazine cover. This was before America had brought Nazi war criminals, after WW2, to build rockets at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. This was before the exploration of outer space. Even before the age of jet planes. The world knew nothing of outer space and probably still knows very little.

When we review world headlines, the news of the day, we have reason to wonder just how low, low is. This writer still remembers Dr. Mesick, president of East Carolina University, saying to him many years ago before his death, "We are about one generation away from barbarianism." I have lived long enough to witness this new generation and the barbarians.

For one who loves his country, but despises what has happened to its government, in my lifetime. A totally blind, one hundred percent disabled, eight-five year old veteran, has difficulty acclimating to barbarians.

I knew it was over for my country when I witnessed Monica Lewinski, a female pervert, testifying in the well of the U.S Senate, about her sexual relationship with a pervert president. If the relationship between the pervert president and the pervert intern was not enough, TODAY September 24th, 2015, we witnessed the punitive of the Roman Catholic church spreading his superficial modernistic-socialistic-theolistic malarkey to a cheering congress. Every political doctrine, every theological doctrine, all pretending to have a supernatural relationship with the Pope, the people of America, the political assassins of the world. We have reason to wonder just how low, low is. IF this Roman Catholic Pope, ruler of over one billion Roman Catholics, were serious about his calling-faith in god, when Barack and Michelle met him on his arrival, he would have hit both of them on the head and said, "I'm here to represent the 56 million of babies killed in your abortion holocaust." This sighted pope man, who obviously has a voice and eyes, has seen the films taken of planned parent hood... tissues of aborted babies HARVESTED and sold like commodities." IF this roman Catholic priest "supposedly" here for a Catholic family gathering in Philadelphia, knows anything about God's word, he would have had much to say to the executive branch of government-judicial branch of government-legislative branch of government about same sex marriage. The destruction of the family. IF Pope Francis were a real man, with the spinal Colum and intestines of a real man, he would have much to say to the hundred of catholic bishops gathered to great him, about the forty million American Catholics who vote the democrat party ticket and helped put into office a Muslim heretic, promoter of partial birth abortion, destroyer of the American constitution, destroyer of the American middle class, Barack Hussein Obama. The time has ended for political correction from the pool pit, even for the victor of wrong.

America finds itself in the present mess, reaching to see just how long it can go because roman Catholics, southern Baptists and other so called believers have put their own popularity-political correctness, above and ahead of the power of all mighty God. If they really believed in the power of the creator of the universe, who spoke and the world was formed, they would know that all God must do is speak a word  and nothingness can be something-ness, just as in the beginning... nothingness became something-ness. We have become a world of pretension, pretending to believe, pretending to have concerns for climate-for one another. Just going through the motions of living thinking that God is not going to hold us accountable, that God is confused, that his mercy will cover our decadence. God will forgive our profane culture only through repentance. The Pope, his hierarchy, his priests can occupy every confessional booth, but God only hears the prayers of the truly repentant. We are seeing what happens to lukewarm, evangelical churches, where pastors are more concerned with their package (salary, benefits) than the providence of those hugging the pews on the inside of the church or those proliferating the shadows outside the church building. Many parishioners think that check book love will buy them a small slice of God's mercy. Check book love is better than no love, but it is only the humble separation of those chosen-drawn-called and those who are unashamed to proclaim his presence in their life that he can use. What better time would the victor of wrong ever had to give testimony of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, then on this date before a crowd of mostly corrupt politicians. BUT, what better time for God to have shown his power than at that illicit trial of Pilate, when our blessed lord was on trial. I'm sure early Christians had wonderment about just how low the person hood of man could go. Two thousand years later, on this side of the cross (the one thing I admire about the Catholic church, their use of the crucifix) real Christians, real believers in sins ruin and Christ redemption, real Warriors for the battle of the constitution, must take heart in knowing there is always a bottom and that there are many signs along the way to the bottom, signs telling us-warning us about the peril of the fall. Christians know about the "pit from which they were dug." Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. (Isaiah 51:1) When you hear leaders from the universal Catholic church, when you hear technology programs (radio and TV) begging-pleading for God's mercy (in times like these) you will know that the bottom has been recognized. That the world, flesh, devil, has been exposed as evil.

Separated

#1774

Come out from them and be separate!

(Arthur Pink)

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2

Men of the world form their opinions of the gospel, from what they observe in its professors. There is nothing more dangerous and injurious, than when professors of religion conform to the world so far that no clear distinction can be observed between them and the worldling.

It is sometimes alleged by professors who thus accommodate themselves to the fashions and amusements of the world, that they hope by this means to render religion attractive. But this is a weak pretext, for such conformity always tends to confirm the ungodly in their carelessness. When they see professors at the theater, or in the ballroom, their conclusion is that there is no reality in Christianity.

"Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." 2 Corinthians 6:17-18

   ~  ~  ~  ~

            This is the first day of the 2015 fall season. Variety is suppose to be the "spice of life." We like seasons of the year, Fall-Winter-Spring-Summer because it gives us variety in temperature, BUT our Christian discipleship must be consistent-immovable, transformed to God not conforming to the world.

            Most churches are "drying up" because Christian's have not been converted to a transformed life. We do not want to be different, preferring to conform to the world around us.

            This past week I heard a pastor state that he had not been wearing a neck tie to church. One of my friends who attends one these large mega churches told me that these mega congregations grow so fast because "anything goes"... you can go to church dressed just anyway-flip flops, shorts, etc. There is no membership, no rules of faith and practices, no emphasis on offerings.

            God wants Christians to be a peculiar people, His ambassadors. This world traveler always found that "strangers and foreigners" (1 Peter 2:11) were always different because their habits, language, clothing, was different. When this old-blind veteran was young and even to this very day, in going to Sunday school or church, we wore our Sunday best. Don't embarrass my blessed Lord, especially at the church house, present to others the best version of yourself. Be proud to be a Christian in everything. Don't be afraid to be different. The child of God IS different. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Reality Enigmatic Plunge At Eighty-Five

#1773

“We have shared the incommunicable experience of war, we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youth our hearts were touched with fire.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

            When you reach the age of eighty-five, you no longer have fear of death. You no longer have the competitive spirit. You no longer have the fright of un-forgiveness. You have forgiven all those who have wronged you and if they do not accept such, they are on God's hook, after all, with mercy to spare God has forgiven me for all my rotten sins and if he can forgive "the chief of sinners" such as me, I can forgive others and ask forgiveness of others.. commission and omission.

 

            At eighty-five you have given up about your looks, about your ambitions, your relationships, you have learned not to be shocked at anything, to expect very little from the world and those who inhabit it. You realize how little you have affected those with whom you have come in contact. Those who should have been closest to you. Most were just pretending, like bureaucrats, politicians, even  the cashier at the grocery store, "have a good day," ALL were just going through the motions. You realize just how empty most phrases "I'm praying for you," and the death of a parent or friend, someone saying, "they are better off" (how do they know they are better off?) Or, some irrational statement, finding a needle in a hay-stack (most people have never seen a hay-stack, have no idea what it is like.) OR, "killing two birds with one stone" (those who would kill a bird or anything else have no idea about the intricacies of life... even bird life.) Some of these same people would vote for politicians or groups that are for planned parenthood, that would take the life of the most innocent. Most people I know have little concept of photosynthesis (plant life) or the homeostasis of animal life (clotting of blood, etc.) When my great grandparents were children the population of the United States was thirty-one million. Every time we pass a graveyard where these old people are buried, we should give them the honor of thinking about what they accomplished. Now, the population of the United States, three-hundred and fifteen million. Ninety million do not work, nearly fifty million on welfare, almost 200 million draw a government check of some sort.

 

          

In my lifetime, eighty-five years, I have seen America change completely. Just a small percentage of the population controls all the wealth (some say 1%.) Just a small percentage of the population pays all the taxes (some say 20%.) The middle class has largely become the working class, struggling for survival. The "talking box" in the living room, satanic fed desires for ease keeps from an early age, everyone dissatisfied with everything. The court house is over run by those with addictions. The school house has become a place for entertainment instead of education. The church house has become a battlefield for souls with the fight carried on from air-conditioned fox holes. Your house has become just a changing room or filling station. This world traveler (Doctor Morris' passport has been stamped in 157 countries, eight around the world trips... every continent) has see more commitment to false religions than committed-concerned-convinced-dedication to basic Christianity (in a so called Christian nation.) Most churches are just country clubs with steeples. In my days in speaking before civic clubs, I found more loyalty to civic club principles than I found at most Christian churches.

 

            I believe that the thing that bothers me the most, as most of us enjoy the comforts of 21st century living, just how little we appreciate what we have inherited... we are so busy picking flowers which we did not plant.  Never for one day has the poverty of my youth left my mind and not just me, all my family. We left the fundamental denomination of our forbearers of church house which did not have inside plumbing. We were embarrassed about our own homes, homes of love and understanding because of no inside plumbing... old drafty houses. We could not invite friends to our homes or our churches because they just might need to go to the bathroom. Most of our college educated friends had never seen an "out-house."

 

            This writer, like his parents-grandparents-great grandparents before him, followed his blessed Lord in baptism by being baptized in a fish pond (long before an inside baptistery was installed into our country church.) Women did not wear pant suites/slacks to church. Aunt Sarah who died at 98 would go around and use a safety pins to pin the girls dresses between their legs, so that the dresses would not rise up when they got into the pond. All believe in truth. Your truth is not necessarily my truth... your experiences are not my experiences. Our ancestors had not experienced the truth of inside plumbing, electric power, the bottomless ocean of technology. God forgive us for not appreciating them enough, for not celebrating the fact that they did the best they could with what they had.

           

            I participated at the funeral for the first graduate of the North Carolina State University, who died at one-hundred (N.M. Matthews, Goldsboro NC.) He and I would talk about the challenges of this new nation. My uncle turner told me about the first multistory, eight story, hotel building that went up in the county. Men carrying bricks and water, on their shoulders, up many feet to build that building. My great-grandfather wrote about his first experiences with electric lights, when he attended a baptist convention in Nashville, Tennessee. My own Grandmother and my relatives were land owners, talked about picking cotton  the day after her marriage. Can we even imagine the depths of poverty and despondency for the tenant farmers, the black people of that time in history. This writer still remembers studying the primitive medical instruments (still used until the beginning of the 20th century) at the UNC school of medicine, Chapel Hill. I will never understand my treatment as a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran. I will never understand my treatment by relatives who knew full well that I had worked very hard, lived a life of trust in God, to reach this time of disembarkation. I wonder how I would have been treated by my family-relatives-associates if I had been convicted of some crime and gone to prison. It suffices to say that most survivors who have reached the 21st century are just caught up in a world of me-ism.

            Most of us might go to God's house and sing such old Christian hymns as "Jesus keep me near the cross." When Jesus knows, we do not mean a word of it. The Christian religion is a supernatural religion. You can not be a Christian without believing in the supernatural. It is the supernatural love of God and love by God, which gives reality to life even in the 21st century. I so pity those who have no memories. I so pity those who have no hope for the future. Six hundred thousand Americans were killed in the great American Civil War. It was not that long ago, I have known family members who were alive during that time. They had the faith to keep on keeping on. I do believe that faith is ninety percent raw courage. This morning, eighty-fifth year my mind is clear, my body free of pain, ready to take the plunge into the depths of the river of reality. 

Choices

#1772

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness." - Victor Hugo

 

            William Butler Yeats said, "The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time." It is hard to imagine that we can not imagine. It is hard not to believe in the laws of nature, the rules of mathematics, what happiness and misery can do to a human being.

 

            When I had sight, I often thought the most marvelous thing in the world was to be born as a good looking man, or a beautiful woman and yet, we all know, that know one escapes the age scars from ones own history. The greatest cause of the death of human being, around the world, abortion, the killing of the most innocent. Only human beings abort their young, lesser animals do not AND those of us chosen for life know how quickly innocence fades. Ever since our first parents Adam and Eve, chose the spirit of death instead of the spirit of life, the sin nature has been born in all of us. It is not necessary to teach a child to sin.

 

            The older I get, the less I understand why people make the choices they do involving the only life they have to live. In visiting by phone with church friends around the nation, I hear the same lament, empty churches. Churches are empty because we have reduced Jesus in order to accommodate the world. Most church members have a self-imposed purgatory, wanting to hold onto Jesus with one hand and the world with the other. "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked." (Psalms 97:10)

 

            This writer was never a member of a social fraternity, not even a fraternal organization such as masons, moose, woodmen, etc. Once, one of my friends, an elk, invited me to go into his elks club with him. I will never forgot the sign hanging in that fraternal-secretive-social group's building. "What you see or hear here, stays here." Then, I knew why the members of the fraternal groups have their closeness to one another, their protection of one another, their knowing the sins of one another, secreted in a building away from the prying eyes of those who might not agree with their alcohol-gambling-pornography. I now know why, so many of us were never asked to pledge college social fraternities. I now know why, young Christian men, fresh from Christian homes, were stupefied when invited to a fraternity house where alcohol, drugs, pornographic films were shown so that shock or failing to "fit in" could be observed. After all, sinners have never felt comfortable in their sinful actions around those who have principles and character. The sinner does not fit in, feel comfortable, in places with the purpose of decadence. Christianity is not difficult, just tough... choice making. God chose you before the foundation of the world and he expects you to make certain choices.

 

            Many of us were raised in churches of negativity. "We do not smoke, drink or chew. Do not chase girls who do." We were raised in churches of "checklist" redemption, may have read Charles Shelton's, "In His Steps," but in clothing, in language, in interests, we were not very different from those who never darkened a church house door. This writer was in church houses, not that much different from fraternal houses... "what you see or hear here, stays here." In many of the great cities of the world, indeed in my own city, cold-icy mornings, homeless people hovered at locked church house doors.

 

            The world has a great problem in separating morality from Christianity. Someone asked Burton Russell what excuse he would give when God asked him why he lived his life as an atheist, an "unbeliever." The famed philosopher said, "you did not give me enough evidence." The universe is filled with evidence, everything of beauty, everything of goodness, everything of truthfulness, straight from the heart and mind of God.

 

            It is the universal law that an object in motion will stay in motion until stopped by an external force. There is a big elephant sitting in the room while everyone talks about a small mouse. The great choice of Christianity, birthed twice, death once ( clinical death.) The greatest comfort of Christianity, we will have a longer time to spend with children and believers who died early, than unbelievers who lived long lives. God give us the grace, your mercy to spare to introduce choices to a lost and dying world intent on observing very insignificant things.

SWEAT and Labor Day

#1771

"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." Ecclesiastes (2:11)

        "Man plans, God laughs." There is not a maverick molecule in the universe. "God is boss." He is in charge of everything, every element, every virus, every act of nature, the fall of every bird, the drawer of every soul, "rebirthed" in Him.

        The most difficult thoughts of my long life, the "why's" of human existence... the un-evened field of life's battles. Every time I have considered my own sightless-ness, thought of the pain and the grief so many tender-innocent hearts have had to bare. (People not being able to understand what has happened to them.) The grief of death, afflictions of small children, the fact that the greatest cause of death on Earth is abortion. I can well understand why the agnostic trembles in an effort to understand.

        I have written many times about my boyhood life, the poverty of the farm. 80 years ago when I was a child, there were few conveniences to life. The 50 percent of the population who now spend their life in indolence... mostly living off the work of others... own "lazy boys" watching trash from a talking box, having nothing to do with the very creator of the universe on whom they must depend for their next breath. Despising the very government that gives them their "ease" of life... worshiping this idols of addiction, popularity, political correctness, self gratification, having no desire to know what our ancestors have gone through just to give us this nation. They have no desire to know about less fortunate areas of the world, where human beings spend their entire life just striving for food and water. This writer, world traveler (passport stamped in 157 countries,) eight round the world trips, traveler to every continent, has seen deprived villages, destitute children who have never known the joys of a sweet piece of candy.

        On our farm, where my father-grandfather before me had worked, There was one very large field, many acres. I still remember the feeling of desperation-depression-despondency , when, with a two mule plow, I would start the process of turning over the soil for a new planting year. Behind this two mule plow, you would turn the soil about ten inches at the time.... round and round that huge field. After the land was turned over, then it was "leveled-graded" by large mule drawn equipment so that rows for planting could be established. It was endless hard work, crops in season, year after year, to eek out our meager existence. This was before the time of mechanized equipment. My grand parents had a large tractor, large metal heels with spikes, but tractors were not used for cultivation. I will never forget the sweat of my father, my brothers, the tenant farmers, as we endured. BUT, we are not stuck where we started. Hard work, frugal living, industrious study at a small school house (thirteen in my graduating class.) Me, my brothers, my cousins, all left this existence. Through the hard work of our ancestors, we left the sweat of the farm for responsible professions, God given blessings and yet, perhaps our greatest blessing... removing the toxins of life from our bodies through sweating: and yet, learning the HONOR of hard work: and yet, committed-convinced-controlled by the creator of the universe who knew what he wanted for us before the world was formed.

        In thinking of this great field, and the many other lesser fields, where the same work was involved, such is life. It seems impossible looking toward the future, but one day at a time, we just "plow on" and so quickly, the seasons are over, the harvest is in and we are ready for new beginnings.

        Many of the days, that great sun rose on this boy plowing mules. Now, 85 years later, hard work, frugal living, conservative life, I can watch the sun rise over the ocean from my beach house. Our fellow man, generally speaking, resents-hates those who achieve. I can not understand people who do not enjoy their job. The highways are full of men and women rushing home from a day of work... accomplished, satisfied in well doing. I truly believe that happiness is going to bed at night, tired from a days work, but anxious to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. God help our people and our nation that has sunk into the bottomless pit of laziness-indolence.