Parasailing

Parasailing

"Thrill is gone

                                                      The thrill is gone away                                   

The thrill is gone, baby

The thrill is gone away"

B.B. KING - THE THRILL IS GONE LYRICS

            This writer, now in his 80's, remembers when a thrill came from a ride on a Ferris wheel, roller coaster or even a motorcycle. With the ever increasing exposure to "dare devil" danger-movies, television, video games, etc. there is little thrill in anything anymore, for the young, unless a certain measure of life and death is involved.

            I first saw parasailing in Acapulco. For a few dollars, high up on a parachute pulled by a boat and descending at just the right time...otherwise you might get spattered on the side of a hotel.  In North Africa, one of the world's highest bridges, bungee jumpers attached to a cord, jumping off the bridge, thrill of surviving. Then we have skydiving, jumping out of a perfectly good plane.  In many places the hot air balloon is a thrill extravagance. (Two men in a hot air balloon were lost over Eastern North Carolina, a shift in winds, they came down close enough for one to ask a farmer plowing in the field, "Where are we?" The farmer said, "You're in a balloon.")

            Just living in a world so bewitched by sin and its consequences, escaping the pains of certain eternal death through the salvation of the son of God, should offer enough thrill to anyone. To escape the slimey-wirey-ecclectic Satan should prove thrill enough. Satan always sneaking around, never coming straight on.

            Christianity is not complicated, salvation through grace by faith and by the redemption of Jesus Christ. It was good enough for the saints in glory and some still among us. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1).

            There are no evangelicals left in Europe, particularly England, a nation which sent missionaries around the world. There is no longer an Apostle Paul, a Charles Spurgeon, a Jonathan Edwards. Preachers prominent in today's news have sucked up to Satan.  Pastor Rick Warren's co-author Brian McLaren has yielded to the same sex marriage abomination. McLaren recently performed the marriage ceremony of his son Trevor Douglas McLaren, to his same sex partner, Owen Patrick Ryan. A traditional Christian ceremony was used.

            This writer will never forget his first visit to Jerusalem, Israel. I said to my driver, "Stop the car. I want to walk to the gate. There, as in Capernaum, many other places in the Holy Land, I wanted to think I was walking where Jesus had walked.

            I sleep on a four poster bed every night on which my grandparents and parents slept. I still want to believe that there are things in the Christian's life still sacred, such as marriage.

            March 20th, President Obama will arrive in Israel. He is a politician not a President, a liar more than a leader. Proclaimed the first gay president, promoter of same sex marriage, tyrant and despot to the "spirit of grace." We wonder if he will actually demand that he ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. This writer believes that Obama thinks he is a savior of some sort and many of his followers believe that he is the messiah. We know that he will make many demands of Israel, such as a Palestinian state, withdraw of Israel from contested territory. He has been the most anti-Jew President in history, yet, 64% of the Jews in U.S.A voted for him. The Jews have always been so liberal, always vote democrat, always so afraid that someone might not think them broad minded...just look at the Jews in congress, Feinstein, Lautenberg, Wyden, Franken, a total of 11 out of the 100 in the senate. There are only about 17 million Jews in the entire world, more in New York City than in Israel. There are 22 Jews in the House of Representatives such as Waxman, Engel, Nadler.  

            There as a time that evangelicals, those who knew The Bible-knew the promises of God for those who bless the Jews, supported the Jewish state, but in the present cauldron of political correctness, state controlled news, Muslim fear, fundamentalists have become cowards. None more so than southern Baptists who like the mainline denominations (Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist) seek popularity, academic and social acceptance, what man thinks of them rather than what God knows about them. Paul said to the Galatians, "Who has bewitched you" (Galatians 3:1)?  Later he said to the same Galatians, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2)." The most difficult thing in life, people who add stress to your life. Do not let Obama and his ilk antagonize you. With every breathe you take into your body, fill your soul with THE certain knowledge of Christ.

            Old Testament law, 1/10 of our money, 1/7 of our time. New Testament grace, salvation-redemption of our savior, our lives belong to God, totally-completely. He owns it all: time, treasure, talent the greatest thrill the world can know.