Inside Scrimmage

Football season, High School, College, Professional. For one who enjoyed watching football when I had sight, I now must imagine. It all happens at the line of scrimmage, but the real zeal-plan took place in the huddle. Nothing happens unless the inner man is convinced.

In 1953 Rupert Murdoch inherited News Limited from his father, then became publisher of papers in Australia and New Zealand, then England, then America. Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and others. He virtually Controls publishing around the world, along with his Chinese wife and his son. Now, he controls the Christian publishing businesses from both Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, the largest in the world. The King James Bible is 400 years old this year. There is no copyright on this translation. Satanic forces are forever trying to make changes and the tragedy, atheism now in charge.

In the inside scrimmage of Christian broadcasters-publications-radio stations, there is a conspiracy of silence. So called “committed Christians”, afraid of being called bigots, racists, anti-intellectual, are afraid to hit the line of scrimmage knowing full well the importance of the purity of the Gospel. We can describe these fakers in three categories. First, are the theologians wanting to appear so intellectual, so fair, so non-discriminating, so afraid that someone might interpret their doctors degrees as being from a Cracker Jack box. Then comes the Fundamentalists, enjoying their pastoral packets, not thoroughly convinced of their profundity... so afraid of political intrigue... their tax status. Before an audience hemmed in by four walls, people there to stare and listen at their own will, it is easy to dance and sing in the pulpit, where professing is much easier than possessing. But, on the scrimmage line that really matters, the public square-golf course-civic club. Getting battered by the other side is a great challenge.

So many professors-card signers are not ready for offense or defense... have little knowledge of the game plan. Peter tells us to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us. (1 Peter 3:15) Paul tells us to put away childish things and act like men, men ready to stand for the truth. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

In recent years, many times, men and women have asked me, why young men have become so effeminate? We find this even in the military, remember, we have not won a war since WWII. It is not just a matter of chlorides and fluorides in our drinking water, chemicals leaching from plastics to destroy testosterone. Over fifty percent of young males are raised by a single mother... little male influence. Everything from sagging trousers, dropping down showing buttocks. (trousers in a prison, pulled down is a sign that a person is available for male sex.) Tattoos, piercings, effeminate hairstyles, but indifference shown in books and other media toward the sanctity of maleness and femininity. Those of us who have employed males in recent years can tell the difference. One foreman of a construction company told me “Today's boys are afraid to get on a housetop. If it were not for Mexicans, I could not put a roof on a building.

In a world of political-correctness, liberals are exciting, conservatives dull. The struggle in the inner man is real. We know what God expects of us, Christians, but we want to cut corners. This is the blight on the Christian college, Christian ministries. We rather have the acceptance of the world than correctness through the blessings of God. We “bask” in our image, not His. It is not a matter of what we think, but what He said and knows.

Every day in this time of political strangle-holds, compromise with bio-ethics, Mormonism, polytheism, absolutes.

The third world war has already started, middle east. There is a great possibility that Israel will use nuclear weapons against her enemies such as Iran, Syria, and Egypt, if they gang up on her, but we know ahead of time who will win the conflict. God has told us that the stars will fall from the sky before he will allow his chosen people to lose and he will bless those who bless Israel. (Genesis 12)

It is essential that in our inner-scrimmage we are on the right side, God's side, whether here or there. Gideon only had 300 valiant men, armed only with a pitcher, lamp and trumpet against a middle east army of thousands but, at the right time, so much confusion in the camp of the enemy, they killed one another and Israel had many years of peace. It is more than hope that we are right, it is the inner conviction that we know we are right. King Solomon, speaking as to his son, sprinkle the word “fool” very liberally in the Proverbs. It is not the letters for degrees after our name, but the inner-convictions of the soul of the man that will stand up and make the difference on the line of scrimmage.

Ambiguity

Someone asked me, “how can you tell a Christian?” I said, “a Christian is in love with God's Word. The bed is too short and the blanket is too narrow, something is going to always stick out. You cannot hide your commitment, you cannot get enough of it...the written word, the musical word. You want to commit most of it to memory.” I have thought of this often, “do I know very many people who are truly Christian?” When I call friends or relatives, I can hear a television set going...they always have time for that type of slop (liquid garbage), but, they never speak to me of God's Word, their devotion to it. Nothing makes me happier than to enjoy Christian communication-relationship with another Christian.

One small boy went to pet store wanting to buy a puppy, he told the owner, “I have two dollars and fifty seven cents. I saw a mother with her puppies in the window, I want to buy one of the puppies.” The owner said, “these puppies sell for thirty dollars.” The owner opened the door of the cage, and the mother and her puppies ran out, except for one which was much slower than the others. The owner said, “which puppy do you like best?“ to which the boy said, “I like the one who is running slow.” The owner replied, “no, you do not want that one, he was born deformed. He will never be able to run or be as active as you'd want a puppy to be. He is not worth as much as the others.” The young boy pulled up his trouser legs, showing a prosthesis and said, “I am not very fast either, but he is worth just as much as the others. I will pay you $2.57 today and 50 cents each month until I pay the 30 dollars for the puppy.” The disabled boy left the store with the disabled puppy.

Only the disabled can understand disability, no person can understand blindness except the blind. No person can understand God without God.

I have told many people, over the years. I truly believe most people think that one who is blind can see most of the time... can see when it's time to get dressed, can see to shave, can see to prepare food, can see what you are eating in restaurant when you realize something is wrong with the food, can see how to get a thorn out of your hand, can see the disgust of the “normal” when you ask for help.

God has a way of equalizing everything, we know he loves best those who have lost most. I will never understand how and why Christians are so envious of the lost...wanting to act like them, look like them, think like them. 85% of Americans say they believe in God, yet most find very little time for a God.

If this Psalm does not change your life, nothing will:

(Psalm 73)

1 Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.
2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.
3 For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.
5 They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.
6 Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.
7 Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.
8 They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily.
9 They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.
10 Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them.
11 And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?
12 Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.
13 Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.
14 For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.
15 If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.
16 When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me;
17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.
18 Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.
19 How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.
20 As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
21 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.
22 So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.
24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.
28 But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.

Run For The Hills

#657

Run For The Hills

The most basic instinct of a human being, or even most of the lower animals for that matter, is to run from trouble. I remember, in Africa, my driver came up on a pride of lions. Lions sleep on their back with their legs up in the air. They were all lying, sleeping, not in the least excited by the Jeep, it's driver or the very scared man in the back seat. Any one of these lions, with one swat of his paw, could have eliminated us. The lions had no reason for alarm.

Americans have reason for alarm. If, you pay any attention to news reports each day, you are demented if not alarmed. Just think, involved in two wars which we are losing, invaded by non-citizens who are taking up space in schools, hospitals, jails … all at the taxpayer's expense, a depression which will make the Great Depression of the 1930s, eventually, seem like a cake walk. The final takeover of our Democratic republic by the forces of communist, totalitarian, authoritarian control without the firing of a shot. The last vestige of our privacy, our security, the takeover of our health systems. In my lifetime, choice students, those who could pay the freight, make the deal, willing to keep their nose at the grindstone conquered the healthcare curriculum. From the family doctor in the horse and buggy, making house calls, to the highly trained specialist in a renowned clinic we had the sacredness of choice. The professor graded your paper by hand. He knew you, knew your strengths and weaknesses. The school prepared a doctor for success clinically, morally and financially. Today, professors in most healthcare occupations barely know the student. This extends to all professions and occupations. Today, you are fortunate indeed if your doctor even makes skin contact or eye contact with you.

In the average doctors office, assembly line care, he or she is too busy racing from one examining room to the other mostly depending on lab tests and the computer. You think it is bad now, just wait until thirty to forty million insured are waiting in the office for care. In the new system, you pay the insurance ahead of time and everyone will want to make sure they get their money's worth.

If you tolerate injustice it will grow. Satan teaches you how to lie, God does not know anything about it. The population has been trained, mostly because of the public schools, to yield and kneel to government control. States and communities have just learned to roll over, not fight anything. Like your old dog, just roll over and play dead. In the squalor of contentment, even in churches, once responsible people have become fat and lazy … dumbed down by a state controlled news media and, the pablum of just accepting anything anywhere, anytime.

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” (Ecc 8:11)

If you tolerate injustice, ambiguity, incompetence, it will only grow. Most of us want to be popular, accepted by everyone. We actually believe the Dale Carnegie slop, How To Win Friends and Influence People, we want everyone to like us. Instead of training children, most parents want their children to be their “friend”. Not one person in God's word, leader, prophet, Disciple, Apostle was popular. Our blessed Lord, the only perfect man who ever lived was flogged mercilessly and then hung naked on a cruel cross. He broke up every funeral procession he ever met, healed the sick, fed the hungry but even the religious people of his day chose Barabbas, a thief, instead of him.

The socialist wants to be paid for anything even for digging a useless hole. The capitalist, the Christian conservative, wants to be paid for contributing to the world through his work, his study, his time.

The most selfish thing I know is to accept bad behavior because, you do not want bad behavior to affect you … you know that if you say something about bad behavior, you will be unpopular. You can be sure that the Joel Osteens of this world do not have the big following they have because they are preaching sins ruin and Christ's redemption. The thousands who listen to Joel Osteen, both in his colosseum and on television want to be entertained with nice jokes and pleasant platitudes. My only child, my son, is a professor at one of SBC's largest seminaries. Very much, a chip off the old block, he is an outstanding speaker. On a recording, to a congregation I heard him say, “I want all of you to like me”. I thought to myself, “you have much to learn”. Even the best preacher in the world was disliked by some. Jesus Christ washed the feet of Judas before Judas betrayed him.

If you are loved by the world, if you are politically correct, if you can support the Democrat party with your vote and money, believing in Darwinian evolution, abortion, gay marriage, I'm here to tell you, you are not Christian, according to what I know about God's word. Lazy and apathetic children will be lazy and apathetic adults. A nation consumed by evil will soon be consumed (Just read your newspaper).

The world was practically shut down last week by one volcano … it is expected that the one next to it will now erupt as it did 100 years ago. There are earthquakes almost every week. Yellowstone is very active. Just the steam and acrid lava from Yellowstone could paralyze this entire country.

Obama says the craziest things. Recently he said, “America is number one whether we like it or not”. Would he like it better if Iran or Saudi Arabia was number one, or perhaps China? China is almost number one. He has done more than anyone else to make it number one … exports, manufacturing, particularly of automobiles, Marxist influences all over the world particularly South America and Africa?

Adam Smith said, “anything that creates value in this world is what you do for others”. We are truly in a handout, bailout society. The Christian principle of “others” is long gone. The norms we have today involve greed … greed in banking, greed in political influence, greed in racism and greed in the division of culture … the haves against the have-nots.

You are in a warfare for survival, don't depend on the government, don't depend on your luck … run for the hills.

Jelabiya

#547

Jelabiya

I have visited many crowded cities around the world, Mexico City, the worlds largest city situated in the mouth of a volcano, but the one I remember most is Cairo, Egypt. The population of Cairo is about 17 million. It has been said that in the city there is standing room only for the population. The garb for both men and women in Egypt and throughout the Persian area of the world is the Jelabiya, a gown like structure which goes over the head and covers the body from neck to foot along with a turban. This type outer garment is warn by both men and women and it is very difficult to tell the expensive ones from those worn by the poor. But, there are expensive Jelabiyas, tailored for the more successful. Recently, there has been much publicity about Egyptian men starting to wear Western type clothing, suits, ties and shirts, even Western loafers. Most of Egypt's past political leaders have worn the Jelabiya including Nasser. Today's politicians and power brokers in Egypt wear Western suits.

I owned a condominium in Manhattan for many years, used it when I was there...about one week each month. This was an extravagance but it provided me a chance to meet some of the world's great people since the apartment was near the United Nations. Leaving the apartment one Sunday morning, heading to church, rain was threatened so I had an umbrella. When in New York, I attended the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church...one of the great Presbyterian Churches of the world. I made my regular turns, a blind man must count his streets and be very careful, when the Heavens opened up and it began to rain. I knew I was near the church. A man on the street, seeing my desperate situation, asked if he could help me. I said, “I'm trying to get into the church”. Now it just so happens that the Great Saint Thomas Episcopal Church is on the corner of 54th street and the Presbyterian Church is on the corner of 55th street. The man helped me get into Saint Thomas Church.

Of course, as is the case in most churches...even the church here in this city which I attended as a member for many years, disabled people are ignored. I don't believe anyone ever spoke to me at the Presbyterian Church in all the years that I went there and certainly no one spoke to me at Saint Thomas Church.

The service at Saint Thomas was spectacular...the great organ, the brass ensemble, the great choir...trained, paid voices. I knew one choir member from Saint Patrick's Cathedral. When you hear the voices from the choirs at the Crystal Cathedral in California, where Dr. Schuller is Pastor, or many of the other great church choirs, you can know that these are trained, paid, performing voices.

As I sat in the service, listening to the impassioned music surrounded by people of wealth and prominence, listening to a liberal theologian, the thought occurred to me and has never left that this is what liberal, agnostic theology is all about. It is matter of “Jelabiya”, having a cloak of religiosity, simply from habit, family or partial conviction...hanging on to a remnant of faith founded and floundered somewhere...and finding, here in, a cathedral of worship, anesthetic massage of “feel good” escape, although not convicted or convinced of anything. Others would call the participating in this charade hypocrisy. But, these attendees, although not there for worship...more for the theater and drama involved, at least have shown their allegiance to the history of the church.

Has our entire national ethic become a matter of Jelabiya...patina or veneer? Is there a dearth of depth to any conviction anymore? Are we so busy with our own evaluations of everything...our own wisdom, that we cannot accept basic values founded on the firm foundation of Christian belief and even patriotic providence?

We have a hyperbole resulting in the high flying, juxtaposition, of the importance of faith in a community...the importance of God, family and country. We want God on our terms, not his terms. We are willing to forsake the most basic principles of freedom, liberty, and the true republic form of government, for the man made idealism flowing from the adultery of such weasels as Marx, Lennon, Stalin, Mao or even, a Castro, Mugabe or Obama.

Satanic forces have won when real Americans have doubts about this nation and it's constitution. Satanic forces have won when Christians doubt the very foundations of their faith. Satanic forces have won when Catholics doubt the universality of their faith when the sordid history of the Catholic Church is presented referring to the Doge's Popes, recent pedophilia among priests or a general attempt by the world to cheapen and nullify Christianity such as the constant...”Christian Militia”.

Nothing in world history is as exact as the history of the Jewish people and culture. 659,000 Jews were captured and taken to Babylon as slaves. 50,000 were allowed to return to rebuild the temple, totally destroyed by the Babylonians. It took them four and a half months to return to Jerusalem. The city had been totally destroyed. Removing the rubble of the temple, the foundation of the the temple was the first thing to be restored. The first thing these people did on their return was to have a worship service and take up an offering for the construction of the new temple. When the new temple foundation was completed, there was a time of great worship and celebration. In the rebuilding, they became very discouraged. For 15 years they did nothing.

The greatest weapon Satan has in his arsenal is discouragement. Before the Bible, with only the words of prophets, these people had to be brought back to the realization of the building of Solomon's Temple, still one of the greatest architectural feats of the world, the most expensive building ever built (estimate 14 billion dollars) and at who's dedication, 22,000 oxen and sheep without number were slain and sacrificed.

The world has always been better doing worldly things than the church, nations have always wanted to take off in a new direction...always studying but never learning the true values of freedom and liberty. Many nations thought they wanted Socialism until Anti-Christian Socialism took over. Many churches thought they wanted to win the world for Christ until the world took over the church

In one of the most Christian countries in the world, the Philippines, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, cradle Catholics, enslaved a decent people. Holding onto the church with one hand, the world with the other, they ruled desperately with greed and pride. While most of the people in the Philippines were starving and naked, at Ferdinand's death, Imelda left 1,220 pairs of shoes behind in the presidential palace. In the New York City townhouse where she sought refuge, one floor of the townhouse was a large disco with mirrors, revolving lights, where she would dance for hours at a time. The Marcos, Chicago's Reverend Wright, some of the world's pedophile Catholic priests, the Doge's Popes, even some of my country, fundamental, Baptist family members, have a “Jelabiya” of religiosity, a cloak of professed faith, a religion without possession, un-sustained by obedience.

In David Roeckefeller's 1978 Memoirs, his biography, on page 405, he lets us know that most of us are just slaves, slaves to a veneer of just hanging on to a depleted belief system.

Growing and Dying

The difference in a tree and a post is the fact that the tree is growing. In most cases, the post is dead and dying. In some places in Central America, where the topsoil is still full of nutrients I saw posts that had been put in the ground sprouting limbs, living again.

My Great Grandfather, for whom I was named, on his plantation, had grafted so many fruit trees which produced unusual and wonderful products. Grafting is a system whereby you fuse the plant tissues of two trees, used by horticultural to produce new lines of product. For instance, on the farm, we had a pear apple which was delicious beyond words to describe simply because this man had the intelligence and enlightenment to experiment with such plants and trees. From Romans 1 to Philemon, we find everything we need to know about living the Christian life. In Romans 11:13-26 the Apostle Paul used as an analogy how Gentiles can become one with spiritual Israel. Paul also explains why many of physical Israel cannot see, because "that blindness in part has happened to Israel." It's why many cannot understand, yet (those of Israel who could, but rejected the Truth, are another matter).

As recent as todays newspaper the difference in Zionism and Judaism, most church goers know nothing about this. There are about 60,000,000 Jews in the world. A very large number are Atheist, they do not believe in God at all. In America, many group together just as a cultural not a religious experience. In the America Judeo Christian traditions (the foundation of Christianity is Judaism) evangelicals have become the nation of Israels greatest support. From 1948 when the British and the Palestinians were driven out of the ancient Holy lands Israel and America have become united in the preservation in the nation Israel...a Zion state... to the extent that America sends 10,000,000 dollars a day to Israel...at the very time that Native Americans (Indians) suffer from lack of electricity and military veterans...many of whom are disabled...get the same disability pension as a college ROTC student grant.

The Christian church, Gentiles, know little of the growth of Christianity from Christ until the present. I often wondered, as “the world” walked by or drove by a Christian church would the unsaved think, “I wonder what goes on there”? Even today, as when I was a child, you see grown men standing outside the Christian church smoking cigarettes talking about yesterdays' ball game telling jokes about women young or old entering the edifice and I thought, what possible relationship do these 45 minute church goers have to do with the center of worship on the inside of the building? (Many so called worshipers enter the service ten minutes late and then get up and leave five minutes before the service is over. The service only lasts one hour. All church activities for the week center on this one hour and yet these playing church cannot last one hour a week) Inside the building, it was more or less a matter of routine or habit. People singing about a savior to whom they had no relationship at all...actually putting money into a collection plate for which they could care less about why the money was given or where the money is going. Just being dragged in by habit “it is the politically correct and expected thing for decent people to do on a Sunday morning” never having been touched by thoughts of sins ruin and Christs' redemption, never having experienced the death barrel and resurrection of Christ in the greatest experience of Christian faith, Baptism by immersion.

Often, this totally blind Christian laying in bed at night listening to the blessed hymns of the faith on radio and then outside on the street, hearing the rap music from an over modulated radio which would fit in better at an insane asylum, I know the difference in “growing and dying”.

In the Broadway play Noises Off, a play within a play, we learn the values of noise. Sounds should have meaning. There is nothing as beautiful as quietness. My grandmother, living five miles from the nearest town where a train went through could predict the weather very accurately from the sound of the train.

In the military, when homesick, I could relay my mind back to the country home where we slept at night with the windows open and I could hear the symphony of the frogs in the creek of the cow pasture near the house. I could even hear the cows munching on the green grass.

Once, at the Baptist Tabernacle in Atlanta, I had gone there for a worship service from a nearby military post, there was so much noise in the sanctuary that all reality of worship escaped. I later wrote the pastor and asked the question, “do the people of your church know anything at all about the sacredness of quietness in a sanctuary of worship?” I have certainly been in secular clubs much quieter. The average church congregation, the average pastor, never realizes that the average church member knows nothing at all about the history of Christianity or behavior in the church...the magnificence of worship, the growth of discipleship. I was in a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka where Buddhas' tooth is displayed, there was much noise, bands playing, a side show. With all of the problems of Catholicism, they have some things right, the attitude of worship, the crucifix which reminds us of our reason for worship, the catechism...in which Catholics learn something of their belief...and above all the sanctity of life through their anti-abortion stance. I could get excited about the new Senator from Massachusetts if he were PRO-LIFE not pro-abortion. Bad enough to have fat, ugly Teddy Kennedy as a pro-abortion Catholic for 47 years. Bad enough, to have 54% of Catholics vote for the most pro-abortion president in history. Bad enough, to have solid Democrat North Carolina support a state and national political party promoting murder. “God will not be mocked” (Galatians 6:7). I want you Democrat Baptists and Catholics to know that you are not growing but are dying because God, and God alone, still determines everything. Faith, is a two sided coin. A coin is worth nothing unless it has both sides. Faith, is action, based on belief sustained by confidence. One side of the coin is action,the other side is belief.

The most beautiful sound in the world is the sound of ocean waves. I can hear the ocean waves from my beach house, from the beginning of time, until the end of time, never growing, never dying, always the same...the sound of eternity...the sound of forever.