Conjurer

Near the farm on which I was reared, a small crossroads town, lived a conjurer, “I never saw the woman, only heard about her.” One man who lived nearby told me that large, out-of-state cars, would come to this simple farmhouse, stay for a while and then leave. One, a car with a Maryland license plate, stopped him on the road and asked for directions to the nearby city where they could get motel accommodations. He was brave enough to ask the occupants of the car why they were in the community. “We had an appointment with the conjurer, my mother in the back seat has cancer, we are looking for a cure.”

The dictionary definition of a conjurer is a sorcerer, or one who performs magic. Using that definition, there are conjurers all around us, particularly in places of government. Desperate people do desperate things, someone dying with cancer will go from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital, Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King, died in Mexico. Many Americans seek treatments on foreign shores, not permitted here. My great interest in life, an interest which led me to study for many years, the healing arts. Still, to this day, my mental deliberations between the sanity of science, and the sanctity of divine intercession. I believe in divine healing, there is not one doubt in my mind, that God cannot heal, more than there is a doubt in my mind that God can cleanse a heart from all unrighteousness (Isaiah 53, etc.). The healing of a mind, the healing of a body, begins with healing of a heart. All over the world, I have witnessed the supernatural, often the mystical.

In Togo, west Africa, I visited a large fetish market...a place where you buy amulets, body parts, bones, etc. The voodoo culture is very prevalent all over Africa, entire voodoo villages. The voodoo religion came to the Caribbean early in the slave trade, and is called “Santeria”. Mrs. Obama's mother, Ms. Robinson, who lives with them, is a follower of Santeria. Mrs. Robinson had voodoo witches cleanse the White House before they moved in. Most people would be surprised at the followers of Voodoo or Santeria in your own community, putting a hex on you, or some other curse.

I bought a box of old books at an auction, in the large box was a smaller box containing Voodoo magic equipment: a jar of fish eyes, a jar of small bones, a jar of dirt of some sort. I thought seriously of using some of these “helpmates” against some of my nosy neighbors. But I did not know the words or the attitude with which to put out these things. Believe it or not, atheists consider Christians just as ridiculous in our prayer life, in our New Testament ordinances (baptism, Lord's Supper). Many have told me, in debate, that we whisper to an ether God. Why not bow to a Catholic idol, or kiss a bishop's ring? It is only when you have learned to have the courage of faith to defend the hope within you (1 Peter 3:15), that you are ready “to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love”. I truly believe most Christians are just playing games with God, or with themselves.

Does God hear the prayers of the starving millions in Ethiopia and India? Powdered and perfumed, sitting on padded pews in an ornate, air-conditioned sanctuary, listening to a paid, trained-voice choir, accompanied by a highly-paid organist, rushing out of the sanctuary to a magnificent, technically equipped automobile, fussing to meet friends at an expensive restaurant, gorging themselves with expensive served foods, while thousands are hungry, not only around the world, but just across the tracks in the same town in which they live. Is this really Christianity? Praying and reading out of the prayer book just a few minutes ago, did it really reach the ears of a sovereign God? Or have we just conjured up beautiful thoughts in our own mind, for own on good, a product of habit and contrived happiness.

I did not agree with very much with what he said or his lifestyle, but he was one of the greatest minds, greatest Bible teachers I have ever heard. Dr. Gene Scott Ph.D, Stanford University, pastor of a large congregation in Los Angeles, heard around the world in short wave, came down with prostate cancer. This man was a multimillionaire, rode to his church in chauffeured limousine, but he believed God would cure his prostate cancer, did not have the surgery or the treatments to cure it. His funeral was held in the cathedral he served. Some years before, he had married a showgirl from Las Vegas, who had never seen a Bible, she is now pastor Melissa Scott, having taken over his ministry. She studies and preaches, wears a roman collar, and his canned sermons are play continuously on radio.

You will remember, that the magicians of Pharaoh were almost as good as the blessed acts of Moses. God does use broken, damaged cisterns, Saul was chosen because he was the tallest man in the kingdom. Perhaps, only God knows, Oral Roberts, Jim Baker have contributed in God's eternal plan.

We often hear about the letter and spirit of the law. God knew what he was doing when he designed the human mind, a vast cosmos. It is from this cosmos that comes every invention, every sheet of music, all written words, (thank God so many minds are exceptional), it was from the mind of Arthur Penn, director of many movies, the greatest, Bonnie & Clyde, that much storytelling emanates. Movies, soap operas, imagination is great until it becomes a detriment...monopolizing your time, becoming a substitute for your behavior.

Around 1970, “Big Pharma”, “Big Agri-Industry”, began putting fructose, corn syrup into 95% of everything we eat, this addictive substance, causing 50% of the population to have type-2 diabetes, which will cause 1/3 of all children to have type-2 diabetes, is a nutrition catastrophe. Until around 1980, most cattle providing our beef supply were fed on grass, they moved around, had muscle, today feed lots are full of cattle being fed corn, fast-eating, fast-fattening, a nutrition nightmare...much like people sitting, watching TV or computer all day: fat, lazy, never moving, never realizing that government can better train fat, lazy, indolent people. Not only a nightmare for the human diet, but the diets of your pets, hog and cow feed at one time had molasses; now, fructose, from genetically engineered corn.

For 2000 years, problems of pain and suffering in the world, minds of men change because hearts of men have been changed. My answer to conjurers, faith healing, scientific progress, everything else, the prayer given by our blessed Lord Himself, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)