Profundity

Profundity                     

(Grace Gems, February 20th, 2014)

A proud sinner and a humble Savior

(William Gurnall, "The Christian in Completer Armor")

"I hate pride and arrogance!" Proverbs 8:13

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"The Lord detests all the proud of heart! Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished!" Proverbs 16:5

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A man may be very zealous and painstaking in preaching--and all the while pride is the master whom he serves, though in God's livery. 

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It is hard starving this sin of pride--it can live on almost anything!

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Nothing is so sacred, but pride will profane it. 

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So far as pride prevails, the proud man prays and preaches to be thought good by others--to enthrone himself, rather than Christ, in the opinion and hearts of his hearers.

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Pride loves to climb up, not as Zaccheus, to see Christ--but so that others may see himself! 

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"God resists the proud" (James 4:6). The humble man may have Satan at his right hand to oppose him; but the proud man shall find God Himself there to resist him. We must either lay self aside--or God will lay us aside.

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A proud sinner and a humble Savior will never agree! Christ is humble and lowly, and so resists the proud--but gives grace to the humble.

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"If God," says Augustine, "did not spare the angels when they grew proud; will He spare you--who are but dust and sin?"

            During the many years I was in school in Memphis, Tennessee, I was a member of the great Bellevue Baptist Church.  I heard the great pastor-preacher, so famous around the world, make this statement many times, "If I tell my people to go and jump in the river, I will hear water splash.  If I tell my people to jump in the fire, I will smell clothes burning."  This writer was so enthralled by this man's intellect that he did not pay careful attention to these words at the time, but I have since.  To many preachers, servants-shepherds, living well off of the money people have given to God, get too enthused with their own ministry.  They forget the members-followers who are surviving on low pay.  I heard one preacher from Tennessee say he would rather be whipped than go to a clothing store to buy new clothes.  Many of us never buy new clothes, everything we wear comes from a thrift store.  Another television preacher told about how particular he was about his shirts, the quality, having to hang a certain way in the closet.  I have known old church members giving through their frugality to keep a church going, who never had more than 2-3 shirts over their entire life.  One of my old uncles never owned but one suit, one pair of "Sunday" shoes, his entire life, but he knew the church depended on his gifts. 

            I knew one black preacher, patient of mine, who always drove a very large car with a blinking light on the front.  He said, "My folks can hardly wait for me to lead their funeral procession." 

            It is not just these shepherds who get confused about pride, but church members as well.  Would it not be great if the average church, instead of carpeting-pew cushions-climate control would get interested in what goes on with the lost outside of the building?  It is wonderful to have a beautiful edifice, comfortable sanctuary, with beautiful windows to talk about numbers.  It is far, far better for numbers to count instead of counting numbers. It is far, far better to make our worship (worth-ship) sinners a welcoming place to the disabled and the seekers.  How many blind-deaf-cripple do you have in your services?  WE who are disabled truly want and need a church.  Maybe it is like a restaurant owner told me several years ago, "I don't want disabled people in my restaurant because it makes my normal customers feel uncomfortable."  Do those who God chose for His work here on earth have so much pride, are they so proud, that they have forgotten the essentials of the Christian faith? 

            When the first king of Saudi Arabia met F.D.R., he was unaware F.D.R. was crippled, in a wheelchair.  He was totally fascinated by the wheelchair, so F.D.R. gave King Saud his extra wheelchair.  Then, the big-fat-rich king could be rolled around without him even having to walk.  

AUSTERITY

Someone said long ago that there is free cheese in every rat trap. This surmises the financial condition of the world at present. Everyone wants something for nothing, free money. It was never so and will never be so. From the Garden of Eden to your present back yard in order to eat it has been necessary to work.

Recently a university student (UNCCH) interviewed me about the Great Depression. Her professor was fascinated that there was a man available to her that remembered the Great Depression. This writer was born in 1930, at the beginning of this sad time in American history. Of course, there had been previous depressions but nothing compared to the Great Depression (1930-1940). We may see an even worse depression now because, unlike the Great Depression, the entire world is in financial chaos and today we have a spoiled, pampered population who think the world “owes them a living”. Many are willing to sit on their assets and spend another man's assets. Margaret Thatcher told us long ago, “socialism works until other people's money runs out”. Thatcher was reared in poverty in an apartment above her father's butcher shop, Granthum, England. God deliver us from leaders who have never had want for anything.

You never recover from poverty, this is one disease which sticks with you as long as you live. I came from the most devout, dedicated, hardworking people anyone could know. I so remember the hardworking tenant farmers, cotton mill workers of Eastern North Carolina...all just striving to survive.

America came out of the Great Depression because of World War II. The unemployment rate was about the same as it is now (20%). When America went to war against the Nazi and other axis powers everyone could get a job including women (for the first time in slacks pictured on Life magazine) who went to work in the “defense plants”, shipyards. My folks were just hard working, poor land owners. There was really no difference in the land owning people and the tenants, all worked. I well remember my precious mother, her children, working to make one dollar a day. The younger men, physically able, went to war. Older men, such as my father, were hired by defense contractors. My father, a carpenter, worked at every military base around (Fort Bragg, Camp Davis, Seymour Johnson, etc.). He lived in a homemade trailer. My mother, grandmothers, kept the farms going. I well remember that many times there was little on the table...just potatoes. She had a way of “fixing” boiled potatoes and then potato cakes. She kept her children in school. The women of the church kept the churches going while the men were away at war or defense projects.

America probably came as close to communism with FDR, “The New Deal”, agricultural stabilization programs as we have ever been until now. With acreage controls, coupon books, as far as government could reach, even when we had real news coverage (H. V. Kaltanborn, Gabrielle Heater) unlike today's politically correct, Obama controlled news outlets, fascism took it's toll. Roosevelt was fenced in by communist. His Vice President, Henry Wallace an avowed communist and so until his death. His Chief of Staff, Harry Hopkins a communist. I still remember my mother, grandmother, standing in the road crying as the Roosevelt Gestapo troops, employees of agriculture – acreage controls cut down growing corn, tobacco, cotton crops. Millions of pigs were slaughtered. Just as hungry farm animals could not eat the corn cut down by the government, hungry people could not eat the swine-calves killed by the government. As people talk about European austerity programs they do not realize that 9 million Americans starved to death during the Great Depression.

Austerity, like Conservatism, must be a mindset, a way of life. Those of us who have experienced poverty, regardless of our later good fortune, never feel free to just “live it up”. We know that dimes make dollars, dollars take care of themselves, you only make money with money.

I saved my money as a child. Always lived frugally. As far as I can remember, I have never spent one dollar unless it was necessary. My entire life, until this day, I save .50 of every dollar I make. Of the .50, mine to spend, the other .50 invested. The tithe is the Lord's whether you give it or not just as 10% of your time belongs to God whether you give it or not. I had rather have that left blessed than holes in the bag of that which I keep. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages [to put it] into a bag with holes. (Hag. 1:6)

A bitter pill which American's must swallow, we have allowed greed – avarice – corruption to take over our government and banking – financial systems. Before Merrill-Lynch closed down, it lost 27 billion dollars yet paid it's executives 3.4 billion and so is the story throughout – government retirements, entitlements. Senator – Governor Corzine who lost 6.3 billion of his investor's money, still rides around in a limo and eats from a gold plate. Politicians – bureaucrats – academia retire well, know nothing of austerity, as we common folk survive.

God wanted this writer to see the world, the inequities of it all. I had experienced the inequities in college and the lifelines of survival in Eastern North Carolina. If for no other reason to believe, the agnostic must temper his disbelief with the realization that there must be, if not from above, some equalization...a leveling of the field required for life.

#31 So Long George, So Long (2008)

Last night, President George W. Bush gave his farewell to the Nation address. Not very many citizens, regardless of their political stripe will shed many crocodile tears with his departure. I was born during the Presidency of Herbert Hoover, I remember the 'Hoover carts' during the Great Depression, even the very few people that owned cars, could not afford to drive them. So the churchyards, the small country towns (Many photos still exist of this scene) were filled with the sight of small carts being pulled by the family mule. Even though there are government facilities named for President Hoover, very few citizens at that time had anything but disdain for him.

Then came the new deliverer, former Governor of New York, aristocrat married to his cousin, a man who until he was 14 years old was still bathed by his mother Sarah, and who picked as his Vice-President an avowed Communist Henry Wallace, who was a Communist until he died. I remember very well, the agriculture stabilization policies of the New Deal. Wherein all farmers were limited in their acreage and I can still see my mother and grandmother crying as the agriculture Nazis or as you prefer SS New Deal troops cut down, to die, large plantings of corn, cotton, tobacco, and even food products such as potatoes. Controls were the order of the day. Roosevelt's policy resulted in the death and burial of 62 million pigs.  And, if you wanted to go to jail, one sure way was to try to save some of this food for your family. It was to be destroyed, but the good news since I have given you the bad news, is the fact that there was distribution of government sponsored cheese, butter, cornmeal, and even apples. This surplus parity, along with a few dollars for not planting until this day was considered the largess of the Roosevelt Administration. Most citizens were displaced and unemployed and it was strictly a matter of survival. Books have been written on this subject but only those who witnessed the trauma of this New Deal have it etched in their memory.

Harry Truman, and his Vice President Albin Barkley, had the advantage of taking over after World War 2 which had mostly brought the country out of the economic throes of the Great Depression. I remember that my father, a farmer/barber, could now charge 25 cents for a haircut instead of ten cents which he had charged during the Roosevelt Era. And my mother, instead of making our clothes from feed sacks, could now buy yard goods for sewing.

I will not go into the policies and problems of each President until 2009 when we are about to inaugurate an abomination from the Chicago Mafia. The liberal media has crowned this new 'Patrice Lumumba', first dictator of the Congo, it will be interesting for you to study Lumumba, Mobutu, and the recently deceased Contii to see how quickly a country and it's government can be totally demoralized, not only by the lack of integrity in our own government trying to buy off every type of illegality (people and corporate structures) but allowing UN and Socialist interference from global engineers.

I voted for George W. Bush twice, simply because I could not vote for the Ketchup king from Boston, or the tobacco succerer from Tennessee. From everything I had learned concerning the U.S. Senate grandfather, the grand puppeteer father, George W. was a glorified fraternity boy of the Skull and Bones variety. He was a playboy, social butterfly. President Nixon would send an Air Force plane to bring him to denizens of our Nation's capital, to escort his daughters. Until he gave the first State of the Union address, I understand he had never been in the Capital building even though his grandfather was US Senator, his own father was a Congressman and CIA director, Vice- President and President.

Any one of we peasants would have been happy to sit in the house gallery for any reason at all. He professed that he was not only a conservative but a Christian, and I have never been able to understand how a Christian can not be a conservative. There are over 1500 Christian radio stations in this country and in the beginning, since I spend most of my time and get too little sleep from the 4 radios on each side of my bed, I listen to Christian stations continually. It did not take long before you never heard President George W. Bush mentioned on any Christian station.  It had already been decided by the Christian leaders in this country that God, who does the judging, was very disappointed in this President.

So long George, God help us now with what is taking your place. But, George you will be remembered as the one who brought disaster to the Republican Party and has weakened this nation by precipitating a liberal vote, not by just the Bush bashers, but decent citizens who just 'don't care anymore'. Look around you, those of you with eyes, look at all the visual compartments of life, listen to the most popular area of communication today, talk radio, and you will find that our citizenry have lost faith in their government.

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Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States (March 15, 1767-June 8, 1845 ), based on his career in developing Tennessee, was the first president primarily associated with the American frontier, and was perhaps the most formidable political figure of the 1820's and 1830's. He died at his 1000 acre plantation, The Hermitage, near Nashville, TN where his funeral was held. One of my relatives, who was there, wrote in his memoirs, “I have never seen so many beautiful carriages and horses lined up in every direction.” Jackson had said, “I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King, my republican feelings and principles forbid it, the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.”

We often put labels on our former presidents. Weak, strong, personable, pervert; but in my lifetime, as I have heard all since the Hoover campaign for the office, I wonder if they realize the historical mess many have left behind. It is also interesting to contemplate those who completely fooled the electorate. Bush 41, was certainly one of the weakest of Presidents, remembered only for his treachery to the American people by his appointments to the Supreme Court. Bush 43, an even weaker President, will be remembered by his treachery to Christianity and Conservatism, his ambush of the Republican Party, leading to its death so that Mr. Obama could act as pallbearer.

I doubt seriously, that the country, even if awakened, can be restored to its relevance following the assassination of the Republican Party, the dismemberment of the Party, leading to the departure of the democratic republic, from every Constitutional value proclaimed in writing by our forefathers. The labels of freedom, liberty, justice, have become cheapened stipends for our children, grandchildren and generations to follow. The politburo in Moscow, The National People's Congress in Beijing, the Communist dictators in Havana and Pyongyang, celebrate the triumphant 'hurley gurley' atmosphere of discipleship now going on in Washington, D.C. To the uninitiated, everything is obscure. Only church members who 'back slide' are popular; and only politicians tinged with the rouge of liberalism are popular with the media, corrupt corporations and financial officers and academics.

The test of credibility of the Roman Catholic Church, is its ability to come together according to Pope John Paul II when he spoke in Grant Park, Chicago. The two splits of the Catholic Church are the social peace and justice crowd vs the pro-life crowd; Mr. Obama is standing between, trying to make the splits larger. In this time of 'identity politics', the liberal Protestants and the Black Nationalist churches are divided by a vast chasm with the fundamentalist, evangelical groups and churches. It is difficult for Americans to believe, that in China, all churches of any type have been eradicated (it would be as hard to find a church steeple in China, a country of 1.3 billion, as an oil well in Central Park) The churches, like the tombstones in the cemeteries, were beat up into small pebbles for the building of highways, just as the large parks and unused highway right-aways are used for the growing of vegetables. When I was in the USSR, during the height of communist control, the few remaining cathedrals (St. Isaacs, Leningrad; St. Basil's, Moscow etc.) were used as museums.

I heard Dr. James Baker Cauthen, at a Southern Baptist convention, 50 years ago, say that the greatest area for evangelism on the North American continent was the black population. If you will study the black churches in your community, perhaps not as drastic as Reverend Wright in Chicago, you will find that most have become places for nationalist identity politics, liberation theology. And, like most other churches, as their membership decreases, and the needs of the community increase, soul saving urgency, neighboring emphasis, are either postponed, put on hold and in this age of technology where government checks are more important than God's laws, the mission of the church JUST DOES NOT COMPUTE.

I understand Al Pacino will play Dr. Jack Kevorkian in a coming movie involving euthanasia. Just as the sun rises in the morning, just as people have learned to accept the fraud of abortion, the decadence of euthanasia is being pushed by Hollywood, the media, and the proponents of tax reform. The 'do gooders' who, with government figures, will prove to you that the old and disabled would prefer to just 'go on' , because 75% of all tax health care dollars are spent on citizens over 85. (the fastest growing segment of the population)

When we take the convenience of happiness into our own hands, we defile the very laws of God, the love of Christ. “I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25: 36-40)

King Cyrus of Persia, who conquered the Medes to become emperor of Persia, according to Greek mythology, went down to his pond and asked his fish, lazily swimming around, to dance. The fish just kept swimming. King Cyrus threw in a net, pulled the fish out onto the ground and then they began to dance. He said, “Too late now, too late now.”

When two prominent Jews, Henry Morganfellow and Mrs. Cordelle Hull (Hull and Morganfellow were members of Roosevelt's cabinet, along with Henry Wallace; an avowed communist), went to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the Holocaust of the Jews in Germany, he is reported to have said, “This is a Christian country, we do not get involved with Mr. Hitler and the Jews.” Even after the involvement, he could have bombed the railroad tracks leading to the death chambers at Auschwitz, instead of turning them back, he could have taken in the Jews on the St Louis.

Most of we Christians will be in a far better place, when it happens, but you have been warned; Godless totalitarian communism is taking over, as a young man told me in Yugoslavia, when he spoke of the government taking all their weapons, after it was too late.

According to Cordelle Hull, Secretary of War, FDR was forewarned about the Japanese attack, it is too late for those who died. It is too late for the 85 women and children burned alive at Waco, it is too late for those killed in the Oklahoma City Bombing, it is too late for those killed in the 9/11 attack according to FBI and CIA, Bush 43 had been forewarned. Perhaps Americans have been slaughtered by politicians flying “false flags”, those who talk about these matters are often label as conspirators.

God, Move On

A beautiful bird in the woods scratched into the ground to find worms for food. Busily, the bird took care of herself. Along came a man with a can full of worms. He said to the beautiful bird, “Give me one of your feathers and I will give you a worm and you won't have to work too hard”. The bird thought, “I have plenty of feathers, I sure won't miss one”. So the bird gave him a feather. The next day, the same proposition was offered. The bird no longer had to work for food, it was simply a matter of one feather at the time. Before long, the naked bird had eaten worms without work but was killed in the first freeze because she was naked with nothing to protect her from the cold. So it is with the Obama-lites, grabbing for government checks, letting go of every moral scruple of self-preservation, the government giving you what you need and you lazing around on your overweight, diabetic assets spending the money you have left on what you want.

I knew one of the great editors of the state, totally blind for many years. He called his wife “his seeing eye wife”. They went to a state NAACP meeting. He told me a few white people were there from the University. One of the rabid black preachers preached a rousing message on the “futility of worshiping God”. He said, in speaking to the group, “How far have you gotten by worshiping the white man's God? Whatever it takes, hook, crook, and everything in between, get every dime you can from the government. We know what our ancestors have suffered because of white oppression. Get your government money any way you can; we will never be repaid”. He said those folks clapped, stomped and many said, “GOD, MOVE OVER”.

Does this sound like Reverend Wright at the Chicago church which President Obama attended for 20 years, where he tells us he heard nothing? One of my acquaintances, a PhD graduate of Ohio State University, told me that the Black Church has become a nationalistic experience with a combination of voodoo exercises and leftover traces of Christianity. GOD, MOVE OVER.

The genetically modified fruits and vegetables (seedless grapes, engineered corn and beans) along with chemical artificial sweeteners found along with additives and preservatives have just about ruined the health of those who dare put such in their system. God gave us a food supply (living, breathing, fully adaptive to the human system) which, until a few years ago when the engineers became involved, made us a healthy people. But, GOD was told to MOVE OVER and now we have an epidemic of diabetes, heart attacks, cancer and strokes, debilitating addictions, groveling appetites for nutrition unsustained with fast foods, neurologically and nutritionally unsatisfied with synthetics, a mockery of unbelief, taste addictive enslavement.

Waiting now for the second dip of this greatest depression, when, in my opinion, there is no reason to think otherwise, unemployment will reach 30% and all the taxes collected will not possibly pay the interest on the national debt. We (the people, the government) have sat by passively while Goldman Sachs, with the assistance of the Treasury Secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has looted the national treasury. “Your hope and change” officials (Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke, Rangle, etc.), with much generosity of your money in the bail out fever, loaned zillions everywhere except where needed. Now, even Dubai, who supposedly had more money than God, cannot pay their bills or interest on their debt.

Generous Americans footed the bills for their building an indoor ski resort in this desert country, the tallest office and hotel buildings in the world, indoor air conditioned shopping centers built on man made islands shaped like palm trees. Your taxpayer dollars are embellishing the extravagant lifestyles of these Arab billionaires while many American children go to bed hungry every night, while American couples, both working (“tap dancing” as hard as possible) are losing their homes because of inability to pay a mortgage and 100% disabled veterans are receiving less pension than the college grant for an ROTC student.

At the end of WWII the National Debt, after years of war all over the globe, was about $75 billion. In less than one year of the Obama administration, the increase in debt is $1.4 trillion, taking into debt the entire GDP. With entitlements and payments of interest on the debt, the National Debt reaches $50 trillion. It is impossible to pay the interest on the National Debt with present taxation. In the future, if you have an animal of any sort, even a guinea chicken, the chicken must have a number and you will pay a tax on that number if on your premises. No longer will it be called your “property” but your “premises”. “Premises” belong to the government. GOD, MOVE OVER.

In several countries in Africa, and one in Asia, before I could board a plane (this was 40 years ago) I went through a body search, as did every other person; beyond comprehension. A male, in a screened area, would look in every pocket, even pull down my underwear, search socks, shoes, all baggage, to make sure of their security. The women told me that the same thing happened to them. Many were in such shock they were in tears. Americans have given up all privacy and security for safety but, at the first grand soirée of the Obama years, all security was violated as a wannabe, high society climbing couple crashed/infiltrated, as clearly shown with photographs of them rubbing elbows with the most powerful people of the world. Carefully planned, executed, nothing secret about it, the couple was even followed by news people.

Michaele Salahi was in a “beauty parlor” from 10 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon preparing for her débutante exposé . Of course, Larry King “preacher of debauchery” could hardly await his interview. The American people should be insulted and the SS troops of the Secret Service should be embarrassed by this latest assassination of intelligence. Bad enough was the shoe throwing incident with G.W. Bush. A brother of my Grandmother was a Secret Service agent during the Hoover/FDR administration. He told the importance of taking the crippled FDR into a Manhattan garage from his famous open car in order to change his wet clothing for dry clothing in a rain storm and of the security involved. Roosevelt could walk 37 steps with the braces of his day. At the Bankhead funeral in Montgomery, AL, the Secret service actually raised the street so the Roosevelt car could drive right up to the door and the President could walk the 37 steps, aided by his son, to the funeral. The Secret Service, like the Presidents, like our military system, like the character of the world, has gone the way of Sodom. Character determines destination, right will never be wrong and wrong will never be right. Men love darkness rather than light and darkness is rapidly overcoming light and right.

GOD, MOVE OVER.

Winners and Losers

This morning, when I awakened, I could not remember what day it was because, to the totally blind person, every day is the same; every season is the same. I wear a talking watch, which gives me the time when I push a button, and when I push another button, I get the day and the date. No one need try to imagine what it is like – only the blind know the reality of everything being in blackness all the time. This is the reason I am so secure in the assurance of my soul's salvation, because I do not want an eternity of tomorrows to be in absolute blackness, as we are told hell is all about. I look forward to that great surge of God's eternal brightness when the gates of pearl open wide for me. I can hardly imagine human beings (the only beings with a weightless, vision-less, without mass, soul), spiritual beings who live their entire life with the troubles and trials, pain and problems of earthly life, with only a future, after death, which is a certainty of darkness and despair.

The Beatles, in their famous song Yesterday, said, “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh I believe in yesterday.” We can still hear the young girl who played Annie, in the Broadway musical, singing, “The sun'll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun! “ Eleanor Roosevelt, perhaps as famous in her own right as the 32nd president of the United States, her husband FDR, once said, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.” TODAY IS TOMORROW THAT NEVER CAME. When you get my age, everyday is wrapped in a velvet box – a true gift.

Young people think that only old people die. Newspaper headlines everyday will tell you otherwise. When you go to any cemetery, there are as many short graves as there are long graves. If the millions of killed babies were buried, there would be many more. When I think of the magnificence of God's most important creation, the twenty three thousand genome human body – the genius of the makeup of the human body – it is almost beyond one's ability to comprehend. We struggle with rationalizing how any human brain could be so evil as to even think of snuffing out innocent life. But, to show what losers Satan has made of the winners of animal life: the very ones who commit murder and mayhem of adults and promote the euthanasia of innocent babies and expiring old people are the very ones who are in the front lines for protecting the rights of dogs, cats, turtles, alligators, snakes and even algae.

The matter of winners and losers has taken on a new twist as President Obama became winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. This man, the greatest promoter of the culture of death in the history of the United States, and one who has shown nothing yet in his promotion of peace or anything else for the good of the American people, is the best example we could offer in showing that losers have become winners. The Nobel Peace Prize had been defamed by its giving to Yasser Arafat, Jimmie Carter, and Al Gore but now it can be put in a Cracker Jack box. I hope the Heisman Trophy or Olympic Medals will not become so cheap. Knighthood in England, at one time, was a real honor, but the Queen has so cheapened this honor (Sir Elton John) that many now refuse to accept it.

Salvation, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, is for winners – not the pretension of losers. Diplomas and college degrees are still for winners – those willing to pay the price. Family values are still for winners – those who do not want to see their offspring become losers in Satan's traps. Good health is for winners – those who are not willing to risk the ingestion of harmful foods; willing to exercise and keep a sound, fit body. Manners are for winners. There is still a need for class; for human beings who know how to act, not only in public but at home. People who believe that human action and reaction – with compassion and kindness – is a sure sign of winners or losers.

Unless it is an Academy Award or some other resplendent mockery by popular vote hatched up in Hollywood or Oslo an award seems to mean little to anyone anymore. For many years, I have given thousands of dollars each year in awards and scholarships at one Christian college (a college I did not attend) and to one Christian denomination (a denomination to which I do not belong). Of the hundreds, I could count on my fingers the number of times, I have received a letter of appreciation. In order that you do not think I am bluffing, some of the awards are as follows: 2-$3,000 awards each year for outstanding graduating seniors, a $4,000 award each year for outstanding faculty, $3,000 award each year for outstanding staff members, 2 - $2,500 awards each year for outstanding pastors, a large scholarship in honor of my mother, etc. One would think that an award given by a frugal-living blind man of his limited income would be an honor. Only twice, in all these years, has a recipient come to my front door to thank me in person. I said to a long-time bookkeeper one time, who knew how many college students I had employed in various businesses I had owned, “I cannot understand why they are so unappreciative of everything.” She said, “They don't even appreciate their parents – why should they appreciate you?”

To the uninitiated, everything is obscure. My father told me I would know how to take care of a car when I had paid for one myself. Today's young people will be winners or losers when they learn that today is all they have. Make the best of today. It is very wise to prepare for tomorrow. But in all your preparations, don't forget evaluations and appreciations. Long ago, the successor to Moses, General Joshua, said to the children of Israel, “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15)