Dictum

The meaning of the word dictum is a judge's opinion of a historical or prophetic fact. Most human beings have no idea, and certainly most do not care, about historical events and the experiences of people, great and small, who have known the wisdom and trust of God. People do what they do, because they believe what they believe. God has given us the wonderful gift of free will. We have the free will to rationalize in the mental capacity He has given us and come forth with our belief system.

After a long life of observation and study, I have found that most people are just pagans, even though they may warm a church pew on a Sunday morning for an hour. About 1/3 of the world's population profess to be Christian (85% in America). If this 1/3 lived their faith before the world, the world would have been converted long ago.

The population of the world at the time of Noah was about 5 billion, today's world population is 6.8 billion, the population of North Carolina, 9 million, the population of America, 330 million. God instructed Noah to build an Ark of salvation for he and the animals, which God selected, two of a kind, male and female, who populated the earth. From the first nail, until the last nail Noah put into the ark, over 120 years Noah preached, the apostle Peter tells us Noah was a preacher of righteousness. The dimensions of the Ark were given by God and they were followed by Noah. The ark was much too large for Noah’s family and the animals which probably numbered in hundreds of thousands. Even after the animals were in the Ark, the eight human beings which God had saved from the earths population were in the Ark of safety. We are told that 7 days passed before the heavens opened and the rain came, it had never rained on earth previously. I am convinced Noah stood in the door of the Ark begging the lost to come aboard, their Ark of salvation. But, as in the past with Noah, as is at present with the preachers of the gospel of salvation, the people just stopped and probably discussed their theories of evolution and the dictum that their government and good works would save them. But, God closed the door, the fossil records, history, geology, anthropology of other civilizations and most important, God’s inerrant word tells us that all were lost.

Today, a few preachers of the gospel, those not taken over by the world with its drums and drama, its clapping and laughing, are still warning of the impending end of the world through fire. There is enough nuclear weaponry which Satan can easily put into the hands of his own, to completely vaporize the world. People do not want to hear this, my friends and even my family members do not read this. But from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 every prophecy and promise and instruction in God’s word tells us that it is better for us to “obey than to sacrifice.”

As a scientist, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that in spite of the pagans, atheistic theories promulgated in academia, the most REASONABLE ABSOLUTE message in all creation is the perfect, unblemished answers of almighty God to every human thought.

When Moses encountered God, at the burning bush in a remote desert, he gave the message for time and eternity, “I AM,” and He has been with us, “Through it all.” Let the pulpit pagans and the pew sitting pagans compromise and rationalize about the love of God. It is true that God is a God of love, He has demonstrated His love for we mere mortals by allowing us to be called His children. (1 John 3:1) 150 verses in this small book of the New Testament tells us 14 times that we can KNOW of our salvation because of His love. We know His love because He sent his most precious possession, “His only begotten Son” to die the most horrible death any man has died to redeem us from our sins and to heal us from our diseases. (Isaiah 53)

The word of God, the Holy Bible, should be the most precious possession of the believer. It amazes me still that anytime I call a friend or relative that sin cursed idol, the television set, is monopolizing their time. I have known friends and relatives to drag unsaved companions and children into the church house, where their hearts became hard as a rock listening to a salvation message, the words of which never penetrated.

A dictum which the world has not understood, not even in the graciousness of a Billy Graham crusade, is that God does the saving. You can sign many cards, walk many isles, but until that thirteen inch distance from you brain to the heart is traveled by the knowledge of the redemption of repentance, the grace through faith of the salvation of your soul, the heart will not be changed, but it is evident when the heart is changed. We are told that God is a God of love but God is a God of wrath, a consuming fire.

Once, in Africa, I saw some natives trying to get an animal out of quicksand. The unrepentant pagan sinner is in the quicksand of eternal damnation, only God can throw the rope which he must grab to escape the mire and eternal damnation provided by God. The rope is faith deliverance and unless he grabs the rope and has the faith to be pulled out of the mire of unbelief, he will never be saved regardless of how many hymns he has sung to his degradation, how many sermons he has heard with some ones effort at his deliverance, no matter how many books he has read on the “do-gooder” works of paying his way into glory with good works or just playing church.

For those who hate God’s word, Albert Einstein, whose brilliant mind few will question said, “ not believing God’s inspired word is like throwing a bomb into a book factory and an unabridged dictionary being produced by the explosion.”

Man is the only animal in the animal kingdom who knows he is going to die. The most pitiful funeral I have ever attended, involved an expensive casket transporting an unbeliever to a Christ-less grave. Like the child, who has been given everything except the most important education of a human beings life, like a velvet covered jewelry box, the parent cares more for the jewelry box then the jewel on the inside of the box. We grieve at the unbeliever's death knowing the eternity of hell, but celebrate in the believers death, knowing the eternity of joy in heaven.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran minister, hanged naked on the gallows by the Nazis at Auschwitz said, “The Christian is born to die.” Some Christians, live long lives filled with disappointments, disease, discouragement. The truth is the truth whether anyone believes it or not. The Christian has the truth of knowing God’s precious promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us.

My friend Katherine, who like me, was totally blind. Katherine had been blind since birth, as you know, I lost my eyesight as a an army medical officer. Katherine had attended the school for the blind and, as an only child, had cared for her mother and father until they died while working a full-time job at a local hospital. She often asked me, one who had been able to see until the war, about many things with which she had a curiosity, such as flowers, frogs, the attitude of people supposedly washed by the precious blood of Christ and supposedly, interested in the welfare of the disabled.

When Katherine died two years ago, the funeral home took her body to the cemetery and buried it. There was no service, no obituary, nothing. She had no family and she told me (I have no reason to disbelieve her) that only once in all of her years of living in this city where there is a church on almost every corner, only one time, through holidays, hurricanes, etc, had anyone, from any church, came by her house and that was when her mother died, because her mother had worked with the local newspaper and they had volunteered to help with the expense of the burial.

I can tell you without fear of contradiction, that in all my years as a blind veteran, I could count on the fingers of my hands the times any relative or friend has done anything. Not once, in all the years, has a government agency (Commission for the Blind, Veterans Administration, Social Services) civic club, church, or any other “do-gooder” group done anything for this veteran. That is alright I can take care of myself. Neither have I used your jails, your parks, your libraries, your concert halls (bicycle trails), one minute of any rehabilitation, I worked myself entirely through 8 years of university education leading to two doctorates. With the help of an all sufficient God, I take care of myself.

If there is one dictum I leave for my relatives, friends, acquaintances, our blessed Lord of opportunity, almighty God of divine providence, has left for us His eternal word, the answer book through which we live, move, and have our very being. He has promised us, who trusts and believe in His precious Son, eternal life with Him. For the rest of you GOOD LUCK! “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” (Psalms 119:89)