Upside Down

Laughing On The Outside (Crying On The Inside)

Make believe is all I do
I'm laughing on the outside
Crying on the inside

-- Nat King Cole

More so, everyday, we live in an upside down world. For young people, bad means good, gay means perverted, absolutes of right and wrong, good and evil disappeared long ago--a world that is upside down.

Once, as a child, in my grandfather’s great apple orchard, I saw this beautiful apple up in the tree. I could not reach it. A large passing bird, which was looking down saw the same apple and he got it for his enjoyment. For those who do not know up from down, draw a large circle with a large dot in the center. This large dot is the earth. Everything outside the earth is up. Everything going towards the center of the earth is going down. We need something so desperately to hold on to. Yesterday, September 11, 2013, was the date when supposedly two large planes crashed into the World Trade Center, causing these two buildings to fall, amid much fire and smoke. Over 3,000 people lost their lives in the conflagration—many jumping from windows. The remains of many working in the building and of firefighters and police officers will never be found. No one yet has explained with truthfulness why a third building (Building Number 7), next to the two stuck by the planes, fell into its own foundation 5 hours later. 84% of the American people believe that there is something very crazy about the entire event-- like Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, the burning alive of 85 women and children at Waco, Texas, the destruction of many lives in the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, the murder of J.F.K., the murder of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, the murder of General George Patton, and many other historical events. Many of us love and serve our country, but despise the corruption, lies, and deceitfulness of our government. Most of all, we despise corrupt leaders-- politicians who sell their very souls for power and money. Integrity/ concern are lost words in most vocabularies-- certainly in the actions of politicians and bureaucrats.

The most effective illustration this writer and public speaker ever used was when I cut some branches from grape vines and fruit trees. I held the dying, once alive, branches up and said, “This is what happens when you cut the limb from the tree-- vine from the source of life. As long as the branch gets nourishment from the root, it will grow and produce fruit. The difference with a tree and fence post is growth. You know that the branch is alive when it produces fruit. Cut from the source of energy, it is good for nothing.” My mother could use a branch to get obedience from naughty children. Today, everything in our lives is controlled with a switch, except children. What do people do, who have cut themselves loose from the vine-- the root of the spirit of life?

One of the greatest speakers I ever heard-- a man on television for many years-- was Arch Bishop Fulton Sheen. The father of a parishioner was dying. The most important thing to bring to any person-- particularly one nearest to hell-- is the message of the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The man kept telling the Bishop to leave, that he was an atheist, but the bishop kept going back. Again and again, he went back. Finally the dying man said, “I told you I am an atheist. I will go to hell. Why are you staying here, did you not hear what I said?”

Bishop Sheen replied, “I am staying because I have never seen a man go to hell.”

Streets and church pews are filled with people pretending, yet willing and obviously ready to go to hell. How can a man, who calls himself a pastor, stand in front of a large congregation, week after week, and know that most are just pretending, and are certainly on that broad way (Matthew 7:13). It happened in Europe and other places years ago, the “close down/ sell out” of Christianity. Over 1,000 Southern Baptist churches go out of business every year. Most SBC churches now have only white hair. One Southern Baptist church, which to my certain knowledge was active just 50 years ago with 1000 members, was recently bulldozed. Now a Walgreen’s drugstore sits on the property. The property sold for enough for the bank to continue paying the retirement of past pastors, etc. The time for the “back door” revival is past. The pretenders/ tares, because of the unpopularity of Christianity, because they never knew salvation, never willing to pay the price, have already left. 70% of all young people, from supposed Christian homes, after going to college, never return to the church. The foundation of what faith they had was based on feeling, not fact. They saw, in their church, that the pastor was more intent on entertaining the goats than feeding the sheep. They thought that God needed them. The hypocrisy is easily recognized. God does not need cowards to carry His cross. The cross of Christ is the greatest event in the history of the world-- the focal point between law and grace. 90% of Christian faith is just raw courage. Too many in the church house want to act, dress and talk like their friends in the “whore house.”

Will you imagine with me what would happen if, just one day-- one solitary day-- every believer in Jesus Christ, would fast and pray, stay out of the fast food places, restaurants, grocery stores, and even your own kitchen. There is nothing like fasting for cleansing. Is the future of our broken down culture, our despite to the spirit of grace, worth this effort? This writer, while in Israel, ate cold food in hotels, saw people walking everywhere they did not use the elevator, or machines of any type. They did not tear paper from a toilet paper roll; they did no work on the Sabbath. Is it even possible that in America, Baptists and Catholics-- the two largest denominations, who put the present political powers into office-- could awaken to the upside down condition of their country (the abortion holocaust, the gay agenda, destruction of the home by same sex marriage, black liberation theology churches, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, have already cast their lot with Satan). In most churches, training classes, prayer meetings, study courses, and revival meetings, have been discontinued. But, as children, in Sunday school we sang, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Who will serve the King? Who will be His helpers, other lives to bring? Who will leave the world’s side? Who will face the foe? Who is on the Lord’s side? Who for Him will go? By Thy call of mercy, by Thy grace divine, We are on the Lord’s side—Savior, we are Thine!”