Chriseaster

Chriseaster

           

            At least at Easter we do not have the commercialization which Christmas controls...mostly just chocolate rabbits laying colored eggs. A new twist at the little country church where I was raised, egg hunt at night using flashlights. God help us, what he did, what Christ did, "light from darkness" (John 1:4,5). But, like Evangelicals (particularly Baptist, Catholics, voting for the most anti-life Presidential regime in history-64% Baptists and Catholics voted for Obama even after four years of his failures when before in his first election they voted 54% for him) still fall into Satan's trap of cheapening the most important days in the history of the world, Christmas (celebrating Christ's birth), Easter (memorializing Jesus' resurrection from the dead).

            Even more "tacky," the pretenders, those who want people to believe that they believe in Jesus, fashionable to attend church on Christmas and Easter...Christeaster's... much like church people who like sermonettes: Christianettes.

            20th century Christianity brought a Las Vegas type belief system...a CHANCE-GAMBLE that I might need God sometime. As one black preacher, promoter of liberation theology said to me, "I keep on with my church work because there just may be something to it."

            We live in a world of just "going through the motions." Everything at the school house, court house, church house, a matter of routine, STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES (SOP). God help you if you deviate from a form of worship, not understanding a legal statute, actually using some common sense.

            You go to your doctor, assembly line system, with all the technology, lucky if he touches you. Any botanist with a knowledge of plants, any farmer who has flu-cured green tobacco, any doctor who ever did an autopsy, knew that tobacco (smoking) was evil-deadly for you. Yet, we are perfectly content to put poisons in our drinking water (fluorides, chlorides), see an accumulation of radiation in your own house from so much electrical equipment-even wires in the walls (magnetic field and radiation field). When will we learn that (SIDS) sudden infant death, a direct relationship with radiation, the poisons of vaccinations? This writer has always been amazed to hear preachers of every stripe (Brush Arbor to seminary), talk of eternal life and then, particularly Baptists, trip over one another running to the voting precinct, to vote for liquor stores, lottery tickets and soon same sex marriage. (Every month poling shows warn more Evangelicals-religionists accepting the "premists"-fairness of same sex marriage. Much like second amendment weapons such great Baptists as Richard Land, Franklin Graham, now accepting gun controls.) 

            The profitist, high priestess of new age thinking, Oprah Winfrey excelling in her powers of salesmanship to convince believers as well as unbelievers that Christianity and spirituality are separate. She does not believe that the Christian is in daily warfare with the powers darkness in high places (Ephesians 6:12), that if you take the supernatural, spirituality out of Christianity, that if you do not constantly wear the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:13), you do not have a chance against the world, flesh Devil. Too many think that Christianity is just a convenient veneer, that God really needs us, particularly at Christmas and Easter. We live in a world of unbelievable statistics, 49% of Americans on food stamps, 53% government entitlements, 50% divorce rate even among preachers of the gospel,  36% black children aborted, 72% black children in homes without fathers. Many mainline denominations have bowed to political correctness, Madison Avenue techniques, false idols-Gods of religiosity (acceptance of abortion, same sex marriage, homosexuals in pulpits).

            It is not brain surgery, surely you know when it started...the sewer into every living room, Satan putting images in your mind, the insanity of low level living. Dramatically, cautiously, the oxytocin hormone took over...go along to get along, "lets move on," don't be negative, or the mantra of The Beatles, "All you need is love," or Sinatra singing on his way to Hell, "I did it my way."

            From Washington to Raleigh to Wilmington, just going through the motions. Will someone please tell me what has happened to the world, INCOMPREHENSIBLE? This totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected medical officer veteran of the Korean war era, learned yesterday that he has never been on the roster of blind people in his county and state. Can you believe it? A man who has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes-county, city, federal, always with an exemption for blindness. I have had direct contact with the local, state, federal veterans affairs officials. The local department of aging checks with me about evacuation in time of weather emergency. The first people at my house, very next day, after veterans housing adaptation, tax department. Newspaper, magazine articles often full page about this blind veteran's travels throughout the world. Award as JC Young Man of the Year, one of areas five most fascinating men, philanthropy at churches and colleges (well publicized). One would think that those interested in veterans, those concerned with disability, particularly blindness, would cease on to such newsworthy activity. The state commission of the blind's social worker said to me, "We have never heard of you." I have a filing cabinet filled with letters, several computers filled with letters, activist for the disabled, activist for the disabled veteran.

            Does it worry God that those he created chose to ignore Him not believe in Him, many have never heard of Him?

            I so pity people without wonderful memories. Even more, I pity those who have no appreciation for anything.

            As poor as we were, my mother always found the money to go to town and buy her children a chocolate egg for Easter WITH THEIR NAME ON IT. Three of my mother's children were older, my sister and I ready for college when our baby brother was born. (She died two weeks after he graduated from college.) Earlier, my sister and I were home from college, baby George must have been in the first grade. Here comes mother and daddy from town, mother carrying a box in which their was a chocolate egg, on which was the name, "George." There are many great memories of Easter but none should overshadow the gift which God gave us in the crucifixion and resurrection of his only son.

Universal Language

Universal Language

"Speak a  to me Lord Jesus

Me need to hear from you

If you don’t speak Lord Jesus

Me don’t know what to do

The volcano"
-Hymn: Speak To Me


The volcano is quiet and silent for years. No fires and lava pour forth from its crater. Meanwhile, people venture up its slopes, and lay out their gardens, and build their villas, and plant their vineyards. And flowers bloom, and fruits hang in purple clusters, and beauty covers the once fire-swept, lava-furrowed mountain slopes. But has the volcano really been tamed? Have its fires been put out? Is all permanently peaceful in the volcano's heart?

Just so is the heart of a man, who has merely trained himself into good moral and ethical habits. What the best mere self-culture can do for a life--is no more than the planting of flowers and vineyards on the volcano's sides--while all its fires still burn within, ready to break forth again any day in all their old fury! Good manners are not saving religion. The heart must be changed. The heart of stone, must be made a heart of flesh. The heart that hates God, and holiness and purity--must become a heart that loves God, His holy ways, and His holy Word.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances." Ezekiel 36:26-27

(Grace Gems)
            The most fascinating thing for this world traveler was the language of people. Lucky for me, most of the world's population speaks English. Often when I was trying to speak their language, doing my best to compliment them, one would say "Speak English please." They understood English better than my attempt to speak their language.
            Often, when I hear someone use God's name in vein, when I hear someone disparage Christianity, I so wish God would do a little miracle in their presence. From my inner soul, I writhe in the wish that God had so scared, gutless Pilot and the on looking religious leaders, as they maligned our blessed Lord in the judgment hall perhaps temporarily making a leper of Pilot's 15-year-old wife, just something to awaken these despots to the fact that God speaks in a language that anyone can understand, that he is aware of what's going on. But, God does speak with earthquakes, floods, swarms of locusts, we just insist on not hearing.
            On the island of Sicily, the Etna volcano. I remember walking up its flank, so quiet, people growing crops on its sides, how terrible the destruction, after I was there, 2001 and even more so in 2009. Etna's ability to destroy was there all the time, just waiting its TURN.
            Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, a volcano 50 miles across....always rumbling...just waiting its TURN. Would we believe that God is talking to America with a Yellowstone eruption, covering the sky with darkness and ash, prohibiting the growing of crops or anything, shutting down America?
            The Pharisees of Jesus' day, religious Jews in the temple (money making in the temple, a building five football fields large, profiting from the selling of lambs-doves), ALL descendants of the Jews which God had led out of bondage in Egypt. He had chosen them, chose to lead them through the Red Sea on dry land, chose to feed and water them for 40 years as they stumbled around in the wilderness, slow learners-stiff necked, not listening. But, strange that they worshipped-kept law in the wilderness, forgot everything, became prosperous in the promise land.  Over and over God spoke to them with curses and blessings (Deuteronomy 11:27-28).
            There is a defiant spirit, a gesture of Holiness-presence, which the most humble and the most egotistical will understand. Jesus showed this in the judgment hall...saying nothing. He was above and beyond their pitiful weakness to destroy perfect power. The most effecting words, many times, are never spoken. For God to be God, he does not need anything. He does not need our efforts of defense. Jesus knew that all power was his. Later in the few words from the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).  

Fat, Lazy, Happy...Unconcerned

Fat, Lazy, Happy...Unconcerned

From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli,
We will fight out country's battles
In the air, on land and sea.

-Marine hymn

            Walking through the palace of Versailles, Paris, the marvelous hall of mirrors, my mind overwhelmed by the "paper work" signed there like more recent treaties, even names on fiat currency, just paper.

            Despite the Treaty of Versailles, reparations and all that, and despite hyperinflation (stabilized late in 1923) the republic established in Germany in 1918-19 was quite successful for a while - against all the odds. Germany was on a pedestal of scientific, literary, artistic accomplishment. In 1928 the Nazis won only 12 out of about 600 seats in the Reichstag and Hitler was widely regarded as a funny little man, with a 25 inch waistline, who ranted and raved like crazy in public...no threat to anyone. However, the German economy was more exposed to short term borrowing than any other in Europe in the 1920s, and the effects of America's Great Depression caused an almost permanent political crisis from 1930 onwards. From 1930 the country was largely ruled under emergency powers (in other words, by decree). Germany was already deeply divided between Left and Right, and this division rapidly intensified. Does this remind you of the United States today? This writer is reminded of the old fashioned-southern, hog killing...scraps of pork about to go into the sausage grinder (as Ross Perot was known to say, "Not pretty.")  

            Test case, tests for Europe and America, bank holiday, much like the FDR revulsion of Hitler's time, the "funny money" from Russia ensconced for safety in Cyprus banks, along with the savings from hardworking people attacked by taxation.

            We knew it was coming, "Rev." Jessie Jackson has talked about it for many years, the taking of savings, IRA's (trillions of dollars), state retirement funds to pay off our national debts.

            The one thing this writer will never understand: how and why God fearing, tax paying, working Americans will VOLUNTARILY pay their taxes into a system (IRS, etc.) which takes their money and gives it to people not only in their own country who do not work but to foreign governments who hate us and, USA is about split, 50-50 in all of these principles: principles of right and wrong, principles of need and greed, principles of family, marriage. Christian faith has always been a matter of Christian practice and God's principles. Faith, 90% raw courage. Have Christians lost all courage? Has the Christian church become so fat, lazy, happy and unconcerned that we will let political correctness lead to our created destruction?

            There is a new international doctrine, policy of the power brokers, those holding the purse strings of international banking created destruction. Just keep wars going. In the turmoil of survival people surviving drone strikes, economic depressions, not knowing or caring about anything else.

            God told us that this time would come before the end. "Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with [them] to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of [you]....Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy" (1 Peter 4:6&12-13).  Unbelievers and those who so despise Christianity, and few people, even some church people, have much good to say about everything except Christianity, ALWAYS bring up the crusades, when Christians turned back the on slot of Muslim hordes capturing the civilized world. IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR THE CRUSADERS, THE WESTERN WORLD WOULD BE MUSLIM. Now, we are heading in the same direction. Europe's Christian churches becoming mosques, likewise, abandoned Christian churches in America becoming mosques.

            The marine hymn coming from President Jefferson's determination to turn back the pirate Muslims in the Mediterranean. Today, Muslim pirates operate everywhere, and America sends its tax dollars to enable such, even the persecution of Christians, Coptic's, Catholics in Muslim countries. When will we awaken? Leading denominations, churches, decimated by "play church" theology. The black churches, once a strength in the black  community now a liberation theology. Farrakhan's Nation of Islam has even penetrated and is in charge of the NAACP. Mainline denominations, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, even southern Baptist, compromising with life, marriage, essential doctrine.

"A former Hammond, Indiana pastor was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday for having sex with a 17-year-old girl who attended his church.

A 10-year-sentence was recommended by both sides but the federal judge went with a longer sentence in this case.
The courtroom for his sentencing was full and dozens more waited outside while the hearing took place. Many former and current church members were there to witness Schaap's sentencing.

Schaap's family left federal court without commenting.

Former church member Nadine Salgado says she left the church and is concerned about the victim.
"It breaks my heart," she said. "He was my pastor too but I knew the reason I left was a good reason."
Jack Schaap admitted he had a sexual relationship with the underage girl." (http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=9034733)
                Your writer is a totally blind veteran of the Korean conflict era, active in the city, "talk radio" etc. I have met many disabled citizens. Each tells me that they have been isolated by their community and churches...out of sight, out of mind. Catherine Vasiluo, born blind, school for the blind, graduate of two universities, typist in a local hospital, supporting-caring for both parents until their deaths. My friend Catherine died recently, age 79. Like your writer, she lived alone, took care of herself. She told me, "I have told the funeral home just to take me to the cemetery and bury me next to my parents, no services, obituary-nothing. The world ignored me while I was alive and I don't want anyone around after I'm dead." To the best of my knowledge, this was carried out. She had no relatives, no one knows.
            America, fat, lazy, happy, unconcerned, has let it all slip away without realizing what has happened.

If Not, Why Not?

If Not, Why Not?

"Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city" (Lamentations 2:11).

            When the word "bowels" is used in God's book, it means anxiety. If one is not overcome with "anxiety" these days, if not, why not?

            The radicals who so loved, studied under Bill Ayres, have taken over. Ayres himself said Obama was his best student. His book, Rules For Radicals is dedicated to Lucifer.

            We are witnesses to the fact that there is no limitation to the efforts of these radicals to destroy America. Even 9/11, thousands killed-injured, Ayers reportedly said he was sorry that the terrorists did not do more. Even radical-liberal Hilary Clinton, "deeply hurtful to the people of New York and I believe every American." Radicalism like terrorism has taken over most of the civilized world...from all reports, little mercy involved for anyone.  Beyond belief, Syria-Somalia-Libya-Mali, trying to tell the difference between good terrorists and evil terrorists. Much like the 1989 war between Iraq and Iran, this writer heard Kissinger himself say, "I wish both could lose." Slowly, incrementally, we have become desensitized to the horrors of life. I well remember twice that I had to vomit after experiencing the worst that human beings can offer. Once, after reading a court document about the killing of a two-year-old child from beating, another time, friends visiting with me on my front porch, my beach house, telling me about a very pregnant woman walking down the street in a bikini bathing suit. Perhaps I am becoming desensitized, I did not vomit recently when I heard a  veteran (Iraq war), on the radio talk of being placed in an MRI machine even though the staff at the V.A hospital knew he had shrapnel embedded in his body. which would burn and become gravitational by the radiation. His pain was unexplainable. 

            Fiat currency, bills, paper promises, ones promise to pay. The paper is worth nothing, not backed up by anything. The Federal Reserve prints this worthless paper loaning back to the government $85 billion each month (when Bush 43, $10 trillion debt, Obama, after four years, $17 trillion debt).  Dept which can never be repaid. If one is not bothered by self imposed slavery (slavery voted for by citizen majority) efforts to repay by your children and grandchildren, if not concerned, why not? Creation does not merge with evolution. Good does not merge with evil. Liberals-radicals want a world of ambiguity, no absolutes. Why not the killing of the unborn? Why not same sex marriage? Why not compromise all the decency of healthcare, priorities of western civilization, even one's Christian principles?

            "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (Genesis 1:26).

            Triune God, making man in his image, a likeness of responsibility-construction-work. Because man obeyed Satan rather than God, because man chose death instead of life, God assigned work, sweat, tears, to man. God had established his rights, "Don't touch that tree." We can not have it all, must work, rest, worship. Man, image of God, squatters rights, following the natural laws of nature, enough sense to know that God is "boss", in charge. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). 

            God knows everything, knew that man would "mess up", sin and seek forgiveness. It must be a mystery to God that man is so easily manipulated, manipulated like a puppet on a string by the powers of darkness in this world (Ephesians 6:12), only a trustworthy person can trust, God demands trust. 20 million American houses are in the inventory of banks, mortgage negotiations, sweating out the "unknowns" of Obama care, scared more so than any other time in recent years by the perils of T.S.A, crime in the streets, GMO's, MSG's, an invasion of chemicals from the air (chem trials), plastics in every area of life, the fact that big Pharma wants every person taking at least four pills (senior adults now take 1.6 trillion pills in their lifetime). Stress, depression, even veterans dying from suicide, one every 24 hours.

            IF you do not need and seek a savior in times like these, why not?

Circus Globalist

Circus Globalist

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you (2 Corinthians 6:7).

           

            What else must happen before the world will realize what is going on?

            In my lifetime, just 70 years ago, a large tent with benches, seating thousands, would be put up in an eastern North Carolina town.  Back then carnivals and often a circus would come to town under a big tent but this was not a circus, it was then and would be now, if today's political correctness, caught in the jaws of deceit, would permit such, a Christian gospel revival meeting.

            The one I remember most as a child, the large meetings of evangelist Oliver B. Greene (dead since 1976, still heard on his radio program, the gospel hour). He was a loud-persuasive-rotund preacher of the gospel. He reached people that no church or organized religion would ever reach. Many came for curiosity, the music, often with a need. No one hired him, no big deals in any church could fire him. Of course he took up offerings to pay his expenses, but as far as I know, this beloved well known preacher from Greenville, South Carolina (Tabernacle Baptist Church), did not die with any wealth. He had a mission-calling and this was his way of handling it.

            The thing that amazed-amused me, the innocence of youth having not yet been exposed to the hypocrisy-selfishness even in the church world. The hierarchy-Pastors of the large established brick-stone-stain glass windows, edifices in a town would have nothing to do with this EFFORT-concern toward the souls of men. The bringing to a town a message of salvation-sanity-integrity which even the worst-poorest of us find in the true gospel, needed in any town. The established congregations were so afraid that some gifts in money or talent might be taken from them. It never occurred to the old established congregations that Jesus would have them go outside the barrier of their exclusiveness, that Jesus would ask them to seek and save exactly those who the tent evangelist were attracting, that after the evangelist moved on, those REACHED-CONVICTED, still needed a place to worship-study-broaden discipleship. The steepled churches like the local country club, very selective in attendees. They did not have enough theology in their brain to realize that God does the electing, calling. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). Nor did they realize then or now that "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose" (Romans 8:28).  

            And, it was not always the down trodden, disgruntled, the down and out who were reached and saved at these meetings.  I knew one dentist and his wife who became great soldiers of the faith, many others such as those reached in the Betty Graham crusades who were never the same again after hearing the gospel. Old, there are some social changes from a sanitized-modernized-scrutinized message of the liberal modernistic denomination but it is the eternal word that became the spoken word, that became the written word which on hearing, leads one to Christ. "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:10).  Playing church will not get you there. Most of today's churches will get you to Heaven about as quick as membership in the local Kiwanis's or rotary club. In fact, this writer has been more inspired at some civic clubs than some church houses. With faith in his finished work, Jesus Christ, you get out of these silly denominations. Like Paul, you must believe in separation even if it means your personal unpopularity. For those who know the truth, know salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, know they are chosen for discipleship here to be forever showcased- on parade in eternity with Him, you do not mess around with the pretentions of the church world. Remember, there are those attached to the national conference of Christians and Jews, World Council of Churches, even Mormons-Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, even the new world order, and sentilla of compromise with Satan, cutting corners, trapped by academia, persuaded to prostitute, who actually think they are going to Heaven too. Beware, God could put his nature into frogs if he wanted to, could save everyone in Chicago in a split second if he wanted to. He does not need us, does not care what we pick and choose to believe.

            It all started in the beginning, paradise-perfection, man chose the spirit of death not the spirit of life. God established his rights. Everything then and since, based on TRUST in Him. "Don't touch that tree." And, since man chose to believe Satan, not to trust God, we work-sweat-dig out life.

            Pagan societies, those who have never heard about God-Christianity, just from natural law, do not marry one of the same sex, mothers do not kill their young, people do not steal from one another. In the evil of today, stealing by government-one another, is the rule rather than the exception, taking advantage of the poor, drones bombing the innocent back into the stone age.

            Senior Americans take 1.6 trillion pills during their lifetime. This does not include supplements, just prescription drugs.

            One wrong President and your greatest treasure, the privacy-security of your healthcare is gone. One wrong President and the value system of life from conception to the grave, is gone. One wrong President, Obama, and your constitution is shredded, family values dissolved, your right to defend you and your family to prepare for life-retirement-death degraded...gone. How soon until a bank holiday in America as in Europe? Your funds removed from your bank account to pay the debts of others? You might as well face it, one wrong President (you can not out vote those who want communism), and you can forget a future for your children and grandchildren. As Rome flitted away their republic, they entertained their victims in the circus. Americans have slowly become acclimated to the trash of the television, uncaring about real values, thinking that decadence, the hog trough, is truth.

Poet Alexander Pope and The New Pope

Poet Alexander Pope And The New Pope

"Blessed is the man who expects nothing for he will never be disappointed."
--Alexander Pope

Are you seeking great things for yourself?
(J.R. Miller)
"Are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them!" Jeremiah 45:5
This lesson is not an easy one to learn, for we all want to erect our work for God on the summit of a mountain, where it will be seen by all the world. We easily forget that sometimes the greatest work we can perform for Him, is to do the little things He gives us to do, quietly and sweetly.
"Are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them!" Jeremiah 45:5
Ministers often seek . . .
  great gifts,
  great eloquence,
  great congregations,
  great popularity and influence!
How many ministers are seeking after great gifts--thirsting after popularity, applause, and acceptance among men! They are not satisfied with being simply and solely what God may make them by His Spirit and grace--with the blessing which He may make them to a scattered few here and there. This inferior position, as they consider it, so beneath their grace and gifts, their talents and abilities--does not satisfy their restless mind and aspiring desires. Their ambition is . . .
  to stand at the very head of their peers,
  to be looked up to and sought after as a leader and a guide,
  to have a larger building,
  to have a fuller congregation,
  to have a better salary, and
  to have a wider field for the display of their gifts and abilities.
Gladly would they . . .
  stand above all others,
  brook no rival to their 'pulpit throne', and
  be lord paramount at church and abroad.
And what is the consequence of this proud, ambitious spirit? What envy, what jealousy, what detraction do we see in men who want to stand at the top of the mountain!
"If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all!" Mark 9:35
"So the last will be first; and the first will be last." Matthew 20:16
-Grace Gems
            In a time in world history when pure evil has taken over, I truly believe it is refreshing to see the largest denomination, the Roman Catholic church, enthralled with the value system of the new Pope Francis I, the first American Pope, former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Argentina, South America. (Supposedly, he, even as a Cardinal, managed at age 76 to take care of himself, even preparing his own food, riding in a public bus instead of a chauffeured limousine.)
            This writer will never forget his first visit to St. Peters, Rome, the grandeur of the great Vasilico, the splendor of gold and art treasures.
            Can we, American Christian evangelicals even imagine what absolute fools someone like Joel Osteen or Robert Schuller would make of themselves if they could reach such heights in religiosity? Can we even imagine what absolute fools the southern Baptist hierarchy would make of themselves? The tragedy, American Catholics have so degraded themselves voting 64% in the last election for Obama, the world's chief promoter of abortion and same sex marriage. They voted 54% for him the first time he sought the office of President. Catholics in this nation could elect a President. (70 million Catholics in U.S.A.) Those who believe that the church age is over, those who have seen the Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and other liberal denominations fall right into the Devil's trap of political correctness, caring more about what the world thinks than what God knows or The Bible teaches (lesbian women Bishops, male gay Bishops and Pastors, acceptance of homosexuality in most main line churches, even the acceptance of the abomination of same sex marriage, ambiguity with abortion), compromising in every way with the truth of scripture. IF knowing and believing, yielding to the world flesh Devil, the darkness of the world (Ephesians 6), more willing to tango with academics and politicians for their acceptance of them, than wrestle with Satan, fully invested in the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6).
            Jesus and his disciples owned nothing. Nothing makes me more sad than a fat preacher or anyone who claims to be in fulltime service to our Lord, living the lives of "the rich and famous." One business man told me that he had a hard time getting on the golf course during the week because of preachers. I don't want any republican who calls themselves a conservative talking to me about conservatism unless he is a conservative from bottom to top. By that, I mean, conservative even stingy in every action of life. I don't put myself up as an example of anything but I am a true conservative. I do not own one article of clothing not purchased second hand, one item of furniture not purchased second hand, food is never thrown away in my house. I turn every bottle-container upside down. I got my frugality honestly, my own father would jump over a gate to keep from wearing out the hinge. He never bought any farm equipment new, always everything second hand, renovated-reconditioned. This enabled him to give more to keep the poor country church going. How often WE ate "biscuit pudding" (desert made from weak, old biscuits mixed with the spices, fruits available, etc. used in pudding, served with whipped cream). All clothing scraps were used to make bed quilts. Not one thing of any value was thrown away, in their home or my home.
            How refreshing, the highest religious figure in the word, not so lazy as to walk places, not so greedy as to think about the less fortunate-disabled. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27).  This writer has traveled the world, always interested, as a Christian, raised in the church, in religions of the world. I was so fascinated-depressed by the monkey temples, the sexuality temples, mosques, monasteries, voo-doo huts. None of this is as sickening to a convicted-convinced-committed-born again Christian as what one can hear on a television in his own house. I do not believe you will find anything, anywhere, as disgusting-diabolical as someone, like the prosperity preacher, Mike Murdock, Wisdom Center ministry, Fort Worth, Texas preaching a prosperity theology-seed faith discipleship. Like Benny Hinn, Jim Bakker and his wife, others, living good off the gifts of those desperately seeking blessings. Many never realize that God's greatest blessings come to those who, as Charles Spurgeon said, "Spend much time on their knees before God."

Exogenous

Exogenous

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).

            This writer has found that if anyone, even one of your associates or family members, reads anything you have written with which they disagree, perhaps have a different opinion, they will never read anything else you have written. The magnificence of the human being is his neurological system, his ability to think. The bird has far superior eyes to those of man, the dog a far superior smell to that of man, the cat a far superior muscle system than that of man, the horse-cow a far superior digestive system to that of man. Man has the ability to think, plan, make decisions, dream, the only animal who knows he is going to die. The inner man is usually comfortable with self although many human beings are treated for stress. More psychotropic drugs than any other drug  prescribed.

            Our main problems are exogenous, matters developed from external factors. The attached photograph shows a check written in my professional office 42 years ago. I still remember the very attractive young couple, he, studying for his law degree at Chapel Hill. I knew both his father and grandfather, prominent lawyers. In some way, I stuck the check into a book, or perhaps used it for a book marker. Now, totally blind for many years, since the war, no longer able to practice, I sell old books, even my own. This book was sold and before it was shipped my assistant always checks to see if anything is in the books. Over the years, I have found many valuables in old books...old letters, old stamps, etc., the exogenous history of living. Since this was an ophthalmology book, I am reminded of esotropia (eyes turning outward). When the eyes turn outward it is very difficult to have a single image in the brain...leading to headaches. (Esotropia you treat with surgery, esophoria treated with prism in lenses.) Our lives are more influenced by the exogenous around us than anything else. It is not difficult to love someone who pulled you out of the river, on to the river bank, when you were drowning. Dealing with the exogenesis-eccentricities of our fellow man is an entirely different matter, particularly those who think it is their life's ambition to make others miserable. You can be sure that if you are excelling in life in anyway, educationally, economically, just enduring-enjoying, there will be someone who will want to cut you down in order to build themselves up. Most children never realize the sacrifices made by parents. Doctors, teachers, pastors have told me that they so seldom get a genuine thank you particularly from those for whom they did the most. Most Christians have never realized how much Christ did for them, the will of God, the work of Jesus, the righteousness of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This writer maintains that most, in spite of the fact that they pretend, do not have the knowledge in their hearts. If so, their lives, living-giving, would be entirely different. Within the insidious future of health care (under socialized-Obama care), all care will resemble that of the veteran's administration system. We think we see suffering because of complexity now but when true socialized care takes over, the last vestige of privacy, we will truly know stress. Next to family members-pastors, our spiritual and physical contentment, we most need the privacy-surveillance of our doctor. Why are American's just sitting by and seeing the last features of our democracy evaporate?

            Of all the changes in my long life, perhaps the greatest, a total change in family life. A term from the scripture was used throughout, on this side of the cross. I believe it was made popular by Jesus himself. "But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house" (Mark 6:4). We expected our "kin" to always be there for us. Too many of today's young people know nothing of their "kin," their relatives. Many do not even know their own mother or father.

            Just as those in the stock market always though that a company such as General Motors, once considered the premiere American corporation, no longer in the Dow average, a corporation taken over by the government, bailed out by government money. Do you dare make the exogenous comparison that people are now bailed out by the government (welfare-entitlements-grants)? People no longer looking toward their kin for help in a time of trouble but only to the government, not even the kinship of Jesus in their hearts. Recently, in this town, a mother prepared two months of frozen dinners, stored in the freezer for her husband and two sons, caught up all their clothing chores, spring cleaning, then killed herself. We have one veteran to kill himself every day...such is the stress of life.

Sammy Davis Jr. sang, "Whether I'm right or whether I'm wrong

Whether I find a place in this world or never belong

I gotta be me, I've gotta be me

What else can I be but what I am."

           

            Within the sanctity of your own being, your own neurology in being me, prepare yourself for the outward struggles of others, the world, flesh, Devil which surrounds us.

Crossroads

Crossroads

"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof [are] the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:2).

            For every attendee at the AA meeting, every inmate in prison, every patient on the psychiatrist's couch, if only they could have seen further down the road. Alcoholism begins with the first drink, drug addiction from the first experiment, imprisonment from any laps of good judgment. There are signals. There are sign posts along the slide to Hell. In my youth, every large farm had an iron dinner bell on the outside of the house. Of course, my parents, grandparents, most people, could look up at the sun and tell you almost exactly, the time of day. But, on cloudy days, my mother would go out and ring the bell, 11:45. The hired hands, and even my own brother, unhitched mules from the plows, could be seen riding our beautiful mules from the fields to the barn where the mules were fed a lunch (corn and hay), loved the large tub of drinking water. Everyone in the family,  even hired people, washed up (my mother had rules at the table-clean hands and faces, no eating with shirts off, no singing, rocketing behavior). Newspapers were put in the bottom of the chairs so your dirty clothing would not soil her kitchen chairs. If there is any one reason for the loss of family values, 50% divorce rate in America, the loss of families eating together, enjoying one another's company. Most homes have become just a "service station", a place to change clothes to go somewhere else- a world of fast food in a car. How I would like to put my feet under my mother's table again, have the appetite of those years, know the thrill-labor-satisfaction of hard work. 150 million Americans live off checks from the government. 47% of the American population receives food stamps. All those who TRUST in their entitlements, those who have never known dirt-sweat-hard work, would get off welfare and stay off welfare if they knew the joy of accomplishment.

            This month, some movie studio-actors-pretenders, moved out of one of my properties-a furnished, even the utilities and linens, beach house. When my assistants checked, they found what you see in the attached photographs. Of course property which could be removed was stolen (shower curtains from three bathrooms, all bedspreads, all towels, much kitchenware, decor such as paintings, a beautiful house turned into a "slum" from exotic movie land characters intent on partying.) Responding to an advertising search for replacement furniture, my secretary described a house where a man was selling his possessions. He was so drug infected-inflamed, dressed in pink pajamas, SPASTIC, almost incoherent, sleeping on a mat on the floor, most furniture sold. You see, to feed your habit, the last "go-round" selling anything that can be converted to cash, cash for drugs.

            Life is a journey not a destination and for most people, a series of crossroads. Civilization was built from crossroads. This writer has traveled every continent in the world, every city started with crossroads, a place to buy supplies, to get your mail. Then came to the crossroads, the school house, church house, court house. From here, any of the four directions, another road, to anywhere, even another crossroads. My youth, every 5-10 miles or so, a crossroads, the beginning of a town. The crossroad was where you got the news, where farmers visited around a potbellied stove on a rainy day. Amazing the difference in my great grandfather's store and the more recent country store of my cousin. Of course, city slickers who have never seen a country store would not believe it....the limited merchandise, some canned goods, snuff-chewing tobacco, perhaps some patented medicine. 

            For the drug addict, alcoholic, melancholy, it is the end of the road. One must not necessarily experience clinical death to be dead. Time is a necessity-invention of man. God separated night from day but our day is divided into hours, minutes, seconds. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Even the Queen of England, worth billions of dollars, can not buy one more second when it is time for her to die. It is so important to make every second count, they go by so fast. When you get my age, it seems that every other day is Friday. Many are not given that many days. 245,000 people die everyday, somewhere in the world. There are as many short graves as long graves in the graveyard. Give the best version of yourself every second of everyday that God gives you. God is not obligated, not even to those who are his, to warn you ahead of time. You put on your socks in the morning, the mortician may take them off at night. Is it possible to believe that any human being, blessed with life, would destroy his own life with drugs, suicide? Is it possible that fellow human beings, even the mother of an unborn child, would kill another human being? Is it possible that human nature has become so evil, so unconcerned, that they would kill one another by artificial instruments of war, drones, unmanned, dropping bombs out of the sky? Only the most callous, those who have never experienced war, could have any unconcern for the smell, cruelty of combat.

            Early men fought with their hands, then rocks, then sticks or metal, close combat, such as that of riffles with bayonets, up close and personal, when you can see the other man's eyes. Later, after the objectives have been softened by cannon, grenades. Now, most deaths by IED's (improvised explosive devices). Most of the deaths and wounds of the present 10 year war on terrorism have resulted from such explosives. Drones equipped with IED's have killed 1,900.

            Creator God of magnificent and glory, omniscient, omnipotent, sovereign of all, presents a mystery which the unbeliever will never understand. The unbeliever can never comprehend why Christians give their lives, talents, time, a percentage of their treasury, talk to in prayer, a supernatural being who demands courage of faith in him. We are called nuts, have mental problems. Janet Reno, attorney general, Clinton administration, called people who believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ, "stupid." It is a mystery that Christians were chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), given free will to live on this earth with all our trials and problems (1 Peter 1:7), seeking God for guidance through prayer and then God, who knows everything, gave us to his son Jesus. "And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them" (John 17:10) as we wrestle against the darkness-evil of the world (Ephesians 6). Any problems in life, we know that he is at the crossroads before we get there, "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). IF only the unbelievers, drug addicts, those who do harm and damage to others, could know the salvation provided, will of God, work of Jesus, guidance of the Holy Spirit. The roads and crossroads of life would be much more understandable. "Hath in these last days spoken unto us by [his] Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds" (Hebrews

Professing or Possessing

Professing or Possessing

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).

O parents, parents(Matthew 7:21)!

(James Smith)

"Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." Ephesians 6:4

Children are keen observers, and are much more powerfully affected by what they see--than by what they hear. It is of little use to talk to them of the gospel--if we do not adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in our lives. Thousands of children are ruined by the conduct of their parents--and many of them professing Christian parents!

O parents, parents! Take care what you are teaching your children by your example. You are always influencing them for good--or evil. You are leading them to Heaven--or Hell. Not a day passes, but you produce impressions--perhaps permanent impressions--either good or bad.

When parents profess to be Christians, and do not carry out Christian principles in their daily lives--can we be surprised if their children turn out ungodly?

I fear that the blood of many children's souls--will be found on their parents' garments! I fear the open criminality of many children--is but a public exposure of the secret inconsistency of many professedly Christian parents!

How much attention is frequently paid to the body--how little to the soul! How much time and expense are spent on nurturing the mind--and how little on the heart! How many educate for time--not for eternity! How many prepare their children to take a wealthy place in the world--how few endeavor to prepare their children to take a place in Heaven!

-Grace Gems

            Life is a journey, not a destination. Character determines destination. A child's character is determined by the age of six...habits, personality traits.

            No matter how many degrees you have after your name, your net worth on your financial statements, your reputation in your community among the "in" crowd IF you are like most of us who are aging, we know that our greatest wealth came from the training given us by our parents. When a biographer went to Sir Winston Churchill to have him authenticate his school teachers, Sir Winston put his mother's name at the head of the list. He said, "I had many great teachers but my greatest teacher was my mother."

            This writer loved every one of his public school teachers, from Ms. Dickenson, 1st grade; Ms. Edmundson, 2nd grade; Ms. Pike, 3rd grade; Ms. Champion, 4th grade; Ms. Buffalo, 5th grade; Ms. Gurley, 6th grade; Ms. Ingram, 7th grade; Ms. Eakins, 8th grade; and all my high school teachers, a small country school in which at my graduation, 13 in my graduating class.

            I so admired most of my university and professional school professors. Particularly those who had empathy for a farm boy from poverty, working nights-summers to pay his way through a long, expensive course of study (eight years).

            Down the road, up a lane from our farm, a much poorer family-vicious father, uninformed mother, several boys subject to violent abuse.

            Neither my father or mother had a wrist watch until long after married. My father had left his watch laying on a cabinet in the kitchen of our nice home during the long, hot, sweaty work day. He employed these boys from this distressed family whenever possible because they sorely needed the money. He had sent one of the boys to our house, back porch where the hand pump was located, to fill a container with drinking water. The boy, looking into the kitchen, had taken my father's watch. Now, my father knew exactly who had taken his watch and that if he told the boys father, he would probably beat him mercilessly. So my father, like he would one of his own children, took him aside and talked to him, told him to return his watch and nothing would be said. This was done and I learned a valuable lesson that would last my through many years of renting property to tenants, employing people in my house, around nice things, so easy to "snatch" from a blind man.

            You see, young people do not realize that God invested in them a conscience, an ability to tell right from wrong. Perhaps some hardened criminals have a hard heart, not permeated by anything, most people do not. Dishonesty has become almost common place in modern society, as my lawyer says, a cost of doing business. Young people just expect dishonesty, no longer the exception. Dishonesty by politicians, powerful brokers, even preachers. This writer has told so many young people working for me or just living "life is tough enough at best." Most "things" which excite you are just junk compared to your immortal soul. Working for me, someone who needs you, willing to pay you, don't take my "stuff" and for the rest of your life, be reminded by your conscience everyday, "I stole from an old blind veteran who trusted me."  

            This very week, this totally blind medical officer veteran is wracked by pain. The stress of having to replace property taken from me by young men to whom I had rented a house, young men a third my age, good salaries from the local movie studio. It is this type stress, almost a way of life, destroying the health of a nation. If God has the very hairs of your head counted (Matthew 10:30) and I believe he does because everything in his book has proven to be true, he will most assuredly take care of his own and those who torture his own.

"But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23).

Veneer of Character

Veneer of Character

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

Abraham Lincoln

            A foreman in a large eastern NC furniture factory told this writer, "I can take any type wood, even the cheapest wood and with paint and texturizing, make it look like any wood you might desire...pecan, walnut, oak, cherry, etc." So, when you go to a funeral and see a fine, expensive, walnut casket, OR go into a well furnished home, there may just be antique cherry-pecan-oak pieces of furniture. With caskets, furniture or even paneling, impressing with fakery.  Antique dealers learn early not to get taken. For one who appreciates fine things, old wood-prints, an easy costly venture is to buy what appears to be an old print in an old antique frame just to find that the glass in front of the print has been painted with varnish, the frame a very good copy of an original. 

            The greatest challenge to the bioethicist, making decisions about the veneers of character because fakery involves more than things. "For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully [and] wonderfully made: marvelous [are] thy works; and [that] my soul knoweth right well" (Psalm 139:13-14).

            Life, living, involves what you have and what you wish to have. Many times, dealing with the toxins of others.

            Hitler's German Nazi party was controlled by homosexuals. The gay agenda, now, always, to mark people...bring out differences. The gay is so afraid that someone will not recognize that he is homosexual. There was a time that they went into the closet, that people actually tried to hide sins, many times in the church house. Now, with bravo and brutality, unashamed, sin and its co-conspirators on display. The great Preacher George Lofton's sermon, "Bed too short, blanket too narrow" said, "Something is going to always stick out."

            In South America, this world traveler met a German-Jewish couple who had survived the death camp at Auschwitz. Both still had their prisoner numbers tattooed on their arms. They were not ashamed of the brutality of the prison camp, talked to me about it, but the wife always wore a long sleeved dress to hide the scars of human depravity...branding because of race-religion.

            My driver was driving me to my beach house he said, "I wish you could see the girl in front of us on a bicycle, she is tattooed from her neck to her ankles. (The girl obviously had on shorts or a bathing suit.)

            The psychologist-psychiatrist, and certainly parents of exceptional children (some children are born with deformities, infirmities, or just inherit genes to be obese or otherwise unattractive-crippled, unusual skin, cleft pallets, etc.) learn early the challenge of dealing with our creator's sovereignty.  Many children of color spend their entire lives dealing with the color of their skin while other young people desire to be different-even flamboyant.

            In the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, this world traveler observed that women had large, round, metal rings in their noses.  Among some African, South American tribes, piercings are a matter of culture, even racially-religiously expected...a form of adornment.

            In my lifetime, women and even boys dying their hair in bizarre colors such as bright red, purple, green. In my lifetime, objects pierced into facial areas. One dentist told me of his problems with pierced tongues or lips. "Normal" people can not imagine such insanity. As these young people age, and if they keep living they will age, just the normal muscle changes of the body, piercings, tattoos will become an ugly veneer on skin.

            Insurance companies in physical examinations are very leery of tattoos. It is so obvious to anyone except the uninformed that anyone who will subject their OWN body to the poisons of tattoo color, will not be very careful in other health care activity.

            Some of my younger female employees have talked about how they love their tattoos. I wonder if they will love them so much when they are matrons, 60-70-80, stretched and wrinkled, their grandchildren's inquisitions. ("Grandma, why do you have that ugly tramp stamp on your arm?") God warned the children of Israel about marking the skin. "Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I [am] the LORD" (Leviticus 19:28).

           

            Would it not be wonderful if in the wisdom of man's thinking (1 Corinthians 1:25) every person were 100% perfect...healthy, wealthy, wise...genes for tallness, thinness, Mensa IQ? God chose us, magnificently designed, as we are. It is up to us to do the best we can with what we have, to always give the very best "VERSION" of ourselves. Our bodies are temples, not dumpsters. (Health depends on nutrition, exercise, rest.) Our lives here on earth, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment. And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. " (Mark 12:30-31, Deuteronomy 6:5).

            God is not blind, deaf, uninformed, you need him more than he needs you. God is capable of cleaning up any type veneer, he is in the restoration business, even human freak shows.