#1891 Serpent Immolation

#1891

Serpent Immolation

"A Change Would Do You Good" - Sheryl Crow

     Ten years living in a paper bag,
     Feedback baby, he's a flipped out cat,
     He's a platinum canary, drinkin' Falstaff beer,
     Mercedes rule, and a rented leer.

     Bottom feeder insincere,
     High fed low fat pioneer,
     Sell the house and go to school.
     Pretty young girlfriend, daddy's jewel.

     A change,
     (A change would do you good)
     Would do you good,
     (A change would do you good)
     I think a change,
     (A change would do you good)
    Would do you good.
     (A change would do you good)

In a world of warped values, you are either an embarrassment to your family or your family is an embarrassment to you.  Think of two recent democrat presidents and their brothers, Billy Carter and Roger Clinton.

Anyone crazy enough to kill someone does not think like the rest of us.  Yet, sinners actually think that there is a technology that will solve every problem.  FOR ONE TO HAVE FAITH, HE MUST FIRST HAVE DOUBTS.  A "faither" lives his belief every minute of every day...not just a Sunday Believer.  The faither stands behind a fortress of gospel music-Christian messages; he cannot hear enough of God's love for him:  God's concern for him.  There is no wealth imagined in the neural wiring (brain) of man that can be comprehended, sovereignty of God, power of prayer to God.  There is one thing that all killers-robbers-lovers have in common, a mother.  This writer was hitchhiking home from college (UNC Chapel Hill) a driver had dropped me off just across from Central Prison near Raleigh.  I was standing out trying to catch a ride and some men, seeing the college stickers on my bag went to heckling me about the ball team.  They were so friendly, wanting to talk with me that I walked over to see what they were doing.  They were digging a grave.  I was standing in the prison graveyard: graves unmarked with tombstones, just a metal IDs sticking in the ground.  Nearby, out of a van, a cheap coffin-like box.  One said, "This one will not be a problem to anyone else, he was killed last night.  Would you like to see him?"  I passed on that but it occurred to me that he was some mother's son.  That at one time in his life he had been a cute-cuddly baby.  Today, dying in prison, buried like a dog, not one family member, not one minister to say some words over him.  WHAT HAPPENS TO ALL OF US? 

I believe in God's word as much as I believe I am breathing.  It started in the Garden of Eden, a perfect place.  Creator God, who knows everything, surely knew that man would mess things up.  His only parameters to our first parents, first human beings, Adam and Eve, "Don't touch that tree."  This writer despises snakes but we believe that the first serpent was beautiful, enticed Eve.  Science tells us that the first snake probably walked, had arms and legs.  Development in this case went backwards because biologists find that there are vestigial (small remnants of something once much larger) appendages in the skeleton of a snake.  Surely this animal was beautiful, the most cunning (Genesis 3).  Most of us are afraid of snakes, so this one must have been enticing, as sin always is.  I believe that otherwise, Eve would have fainted or run from the talking snake.  Of course, she stood right there alongside her hen pecked husband and, of course, everyone wants to blame, Adam blamed his wife, Eve blamed the snake and, at that time, the snake did have a "leg" to stand on.  It all got started there, temptation, disobedience, and blame. 

Christians, believers, are warned about being unequally yoked with unbelievers.  A psychologist told me that 80% of all mental illness can be traced to conflicts with one's religious beliefs.  We hold onto our religious convictions and yet constantly bombarded by the nonreligious beliefs and actions of unbelievers.  We are supposedly a Christian nation.  Yet, when Vietnam fell, Saigon fell, the North Vietnam leaders upon entering defeated Saigon, where America had made it's last stand said, "Get rid of all this western decadence."  (USA bars-strip clubs-sex shops)  I have known so many, that never have experienced the born-again experience, attending church (never understanding what was going on) trying to fit in as at a civic-golf-country club.

This writer had one aunt and uncle (my mother's sister) who had a daughter with a deformed arm.  My aunt had dragged her husband into the church house over and over, he was just there, never convicted-concerned-convinced.  She dragged him to the meeting of a well known faith healer along with the daughter, the daughter was not healed and the uncle became more distant in any belief system he might have.  When you wave the Christian flag, you are at war with the world; you better have the righteousness of Jesus in you.  In times of silence, God makes himself real and you will have much loneliness holding on to your Christian faith: the history of faith is the history of doubt.  Truth is truth whether anyone believes it or not.  With the righteousness of Christ within you, the new birth experience, your truth will supply your every need...a firewall against satanic serpents, satanic addictions, and satanic temptations. 

Religion is the most polarizing subject in the world.  I have great skepticism with those who cannot separate atheism-homosexual agenda-sexuality from the church.  "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you."  (2Corinthians 6:17)  To immolate the serpent, to prove you are a new creature in Christ it may mean separation from family, old friends, civic and community leaders.  There is a separation from Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims...Episcopalians have chosen to separate from Pentecostals...Catholics from Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. 

Most people have headaches and yet the brain itself, filling most of the head has very little sensation to pain.  You could do surgery on the brain without anesthesia.  Yet, so much money spent on over the counter analgesics-aspirin-BC-ibuprofen.  There are headaches so torturous that they are called suicide headaches, often, the only relief for a suicide headache, just beating your head on a brick wall.  Yet, God can heal all pain...every headache.

There is a wonderful older black woman who delivers Meals on Wheels...brings my meal to me.  She works in a restaurant at night but, for years, has done this mission in the morning.  We love one another, she said to me recently, "Doctor, one morning I was hurting so bad I thought I would die and I said to God, don't you think it is time for me to stop this.  I drove up to the house of a poor black woman; she was sitting on her porch waiting for her food, so hungry.  More important, she wanted a visitor.  Right away, she started eating her food, so hungry and at the same time so anxious to talk with me.  When I went back to my car, God whispered to me 'Now you know why you should continue' and I noticed, I had no more pain."  A great spine surgeon, told me recently, if a patient wants to get rid of back pain, my first advice before talking about any cutting, forgiveness.  He said, "Once you forgive you lose most of your back pain."