Junkyard Dogs

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. - Psalm 24:1-4

Most "Christians" truly are Atheists. You can train a parrot to talk, or, like Edgar Burgen, most repeat phrases of "God-talk" like Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Stern. I have found that most Atheists base their disbelief on the hypocrisy of Church-goers. They can always consistently point out the inconsistencies in the lives of others, particularly professing Christians. There are two things which Atheists cannot explain and to which most church members are indifferent... that God is the caretaker of planets, that God instilled in humanity a basic knowledge of good and evil. I don't care how much one does not believe anything, or whether he is a Jew-Muslim-Buddhist-Hindu or even Christian believer. One knows when one is doing acts of evil and one knows when one is doing acts of good. Before Noah's flood, there was such a breakdown, evil,  everyone doing what was right in his own sight, Genesis 6:5-6, that God decided to destroy them all, start over with one man and his family. Modern man, descendants of Ham, Japheth, and Shem, sons of Noah. 

Sin is bad in the eye,
worse in the tongue,
worse still in the heart,
but worst of all in the life!

Sin and punishment are linked together with chains of adamant!

The first step to mercy--is to see our own misery.
The first step toward Heaven--is to see ourselves near Hell.

Join the human family, even those who feed from the bread of life, we all have our doubts and fears. We have choices to make. One of God's greatest gifts to mere mortals, is freedom. This is something the world, flesh-devil, cannot understand. All he asks from the Christian is trust. Because we have not been willing to trust him, because we feel that Madison Avenue knows best, because we are even envious of the way unbelievers act-dress-talk, because we think we can fool Him-play games with him-that His place of worship is just a country club with a steeple because we feel He needs us more than we need Him, He will continue to tolerate our sin AND, since the world has difficulty differentiating between the believer and the nonbeliever, the world wants no part in our commitment. Christianity has even become despised, perhaps more despised than false religions. IF Christ were Lord of Life, those who trust him-His message-His redemption, would not be ashamed to share it with nonbelievers. The Christian church has become a civic club, much like other civic clubs, Rotary, Kiwanis, Civitan. It has become a place for fellowship, and perhaps some vocal harmonizing.

SO, the unbelieving world has decided that Christianity should be kept in their house of worship (WORTH-SHIP) obviously the Christian does not think much of its worth. So the world says, "Just keep your belief out of the marketplace-public square, just keep your belief out of the schoolhouse, courthouse."

Taxpayers pay for a chaplain to lead a Christian prayer at the beginning of each Congressional session, this has been done since 1777. The chaplain is paid and there probably are some Christian believers among the Congress. There have been Christian presidents in the history of our country. One has the right to suspect several, the communism of FDR, the language of Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson, the perversion of Clinton, the Sunni-Muslim traits of Obama, the New World Order feelings of both Bush 41 and 43. Most children would like to look up to the president of the United States. It was stated long ago that America would never be conquered through its oceans, that it would implode. Americans are the first society to vote enslavement. The first thing North Vietnam Communist leaders said when Saigon was taken from the Americans, "We must rid this city of American decadence."

We think of real sinners as having the morals and values system of a junkyard dog. There are no morals without God. Forgiveness is God-centered. Unbelievers do not believe in forgiving. Unbelievers want vengeance. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." - Romans 12:19. Deceit is a large part of today's world. Long ago, lies became the DNA of diplomacy and good manners. Compromise is so easy. We forget that there are sins of omission as well as commission. How thankful the Christian should be that God, in his tender mercy, has forgiven us not only for our sins, present, past and future, but for all those sins which we are not aware.

God created the world and everything in it with perfection, with minimalism. Just a minimal distance separates the beautiful from the ugly, the perfect from the imperfect. There is a great price to pay when someone else possesses your thoughts... in conversation, or in print. The mystery of the world, what makes sin so delicious. We know that it is all in the mind, every sin, every grievance, starts there. Sin takes its toll, one never recovers. The sins we want to forget, we remember, the wonderful things we want to remember, we forget. Perhaps the greatest attraction of sex, health is sex... the inner reaction of male and female, brain chemistry changes.

Frank Sinatra once said, "I did it my way". We may think we did it our way but the omnipotent hand of God was always present. In this age of flight, think of one pilot not knowing the location of another plane... at take off, at landing, even in the vastness of the sky. The creator-designer of the universe, the caretaker of all the planets, is still in charge, still boss, whether you, as a mere mortal, trust him or not.