The Difference One Person Can Make

Now 71 years of age, actress-comedian Lily Tomlin said recently, “when I was young, I really wanted to be someone, now I wish I had been more specific.”

God can work through anything to achieve His purpose. In my lifetime, I have seen the world change completely. At one time, things that were a matter of class, decency, etiquette are now supported only through laws. This very morning, with my real estate representative and my assistant, I inspected a large rental unit that was occupied for 4 years by a large group of psychologists, a practice with expertise in eating disorders. These Ph.Ds, competent specialists who at one time in history would consider themselves head and shoulders above the rest of us because of their education and training, moved out of my building taking with them a beautiful oriental carpet from the hardwood reception room floor. As my assistant loaded other carpets from my house to take to the building, I said, “it has never ceased to amaze me how many times this type thing has happened with people who should know better, who are supposed to set an example.”

This past week, Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees hit his 3,000th home run. A young man by the name of Christian Lopez retrieved the ball. Dealers in memorabilia speculated that the ball could be sold for up to $500,000, but instead this young man presented the ball to Derek Jeter. It has been learned that this young man owes $100,000 in student loans, and still lives at home. Lopez is being whacked by the government for $14,000 in taxes for the memorabilia the Yankees management gave him for being so generous with the ball. Where is the generosity of Mr. Jeter, a man who make millions?

One of the most dangerous human exploits: escaping the tyranny of North Korea (estimated that 2000+ enter South Korea a year). Much money is made on these escapes, must be kept totally secret, technological miracles. Those North Koreans brave enough to make the attempt usually carry a poison capsule with them because they had rather die of poisoning than be captured and return to North Korea.

In this life-long question of man's inhumanity to man, the effect of just one solitary life, we think of the man Joseph Stalin, who was responsible for the death of over 100 million Russians. There was a time when we said, “the death of his fellow Russians”, but we now know that Stalin was not Russian, he was from the Ukraine. Like Mao was responsible for the death of millions of his fellow Chinese, Hitler for the death of millions of his fellow Germans, but usually national genocide is due to someone on the outside.

There is a tremendous difference between a citizen and a nationalized citizen. We know now that Obama is not a nationalized American citizen, there are so many cowards in American government that few, if any, will challenge the fake/forged birth certificate. The world knows about the efforts to cover up his true identity, and eventually it will all come out. In the meantime, like Simon & Garfunkel's Slip Sliding Away, our nation along with any essence of integrity slides down the drain. Those who voted for this mafioso impostor have cost our nation, not only in internal strength, but in international financial standing (in 30 months, $5 trillion in increased debt).

The ridiculous aspects of Obama healthcare, the misery in travel through the TSA, the regulation and terrorism of living through NHS (Homeland Security). It is not just a matter of destroying jobs (mortgage industry, automobile industry), but such impossible to believe tactics as an ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms) program that intentionally let guns flow over the border into Mexico -- and into the hands of criminals -- in order to track drug cartels. The southern border of America, Juarez, Mexico, the most dangerous place in the world (2,500 drug-related deaths in 2010).

In America, prisons are now colleges for crime. 91% of the world's heroin supply comes from Afghanistan where America “supposedly” is in charge. We are a country that has given the world the greatest engineers, scientists, doctors, musicians, writers, religious leaders, we have proudly worn the uniform in support of our constitutional ideas. Yet, at the veteran's cemetery in Houston, Texas, it is against the law to mention God or Jesus Christ in a veteran's burial (Liberty Institute representing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The American Legion Post, and the National Memorial Ladies).

The real genius of Christ's ministry was its simplicity. The real genius of technology, even hard work, is its simplicity. Silence is defense around wisdom, the silence around America's problems is deafening, particularly from the state-controlled news media. The real genius of living is in preparing. Someone, one person in one chair, is responsible for most of the world's problems. One person in one chair, is responsible for the bad decisions involving you and your country. Patriotism, like pastoring, like parenting, is not complex, it just involves the difference one person can make in doing the right thing.

Let's Pretend

#486


When I was a child, and that was a long time ago, the favorite Saturday morning children's program was entitled “Let's Pretend”. It featured big John and his dog Sparky. This was the beginning of the favorite children's book, “Puss and Boots”. When I was in Mongolia, about 30 years ago, already, workers from Communist North Korea were coming into Mongolia as laborers. Having been slave laborers in North Korea, one would think that they would have a work ethic. But, as I learned from “comrades” as I traveled Russia, “they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”. The North Koreans who then as now, have such miserable lives, did not have any work ethic at all. Communism has caused much horrific decadence throughout the world but what Communism has done for the world cannot compare to what is has done to the soul and worth of the individual.

My son, Dr. John Morris, and his wife Grace, headed the SBC missions work in South Korea for many years. My two grandsons were reared in South Korea. As was the case when I was there last, after the war, along the line separating the two Koreas, North Korea has every few feet, a large, well groomed, soldier standing at attention trying to symbolize a strong North Korea. Everyone knows this is just pretension. From those who have escaped North Korea, even those who have migrated to Communist China, it is known that there is mass starvation there. An estimated 100,000 North Korean Christians are in prison. Can one even imagine their tortured existence? And yet the Christian church, according to everything we know, is growing in North Korea. One does not pretend to be a Christian...not in a Communist country where it can cost you your life.

I never thought I would live to see the day when most of American life is built around pretending. The best example I could ever give of this, a family I know, owners of a large lumber company, from very humble beginnings, cutting logs in the woods, hauling them out with oxen, sawing 2x4s and 2x6s one by one on an ancient saw mill, had built a very large, very successful lumber and building supply company...the American way, hard work, treating people right. They were ever pestered by state and federal tax collectors spooking and looking into every crook and cranny trying to find another dime of taxation.

He knew they were coming. They had warned him. So, the day the tax auditors arrived on the scene the owner said, “I've got all the books set up in the back for you to peruse but before we start, I got here this morning too early for breakfast and I am feeling weak, let's go get a bite to eat”. While in the restaurant, he was called to the phone, he went back to the table where the federal agents were seated, and said, “take your time eating, the lumber yard is burning to the ground”. It was one of the largest fires in the city's history. First the office building went down, and then all the warehouses. He and his family had salted away enough money for survival, and he was simply tired of the Communist system of government which we have in this country pretending to be a Democratic republic. Look at your own situation. You are just pretending that your country has not already fallen into the Communist system.

Right now, today, Japan and China own 55% of the American debt. We are all working just to pay the interest on the National debt which amounts to 14,000 billion dollars, impossible to ever pay.

Yesterday, the man who has put the country into debt more than all previous 43 Presidents combined (Washing to Bush) standing on a platform with union workers wearing hard hats standing behind him, pretending to have the American populous think that he is interested in “jobs”. The “liar” knew then as those of you with any intelligence know now that his very base, the environmentalists, will keep our country from building any nuclear plants, any off shore drilling, and job procurement. A Communist government wants the “masses” totally dependent on government.

School boards pretend that children are learning. College trustees pretend that students are achieving. Pastors pretend that their pews are full of committed Christians. The truth is, we have just pretenders, children who cannot read and write, college students without academic qualifications having spent so much time in remedial work, if churches were full of Christians the world would be a different place. Most Christians have never talked to one other person about the “victory found in Christ”.

From the Garden of Eden to the great flood was about 2,000 years. From the great flood to Babylon was about 2-300 years. There was only 8 human beings saved from the first 2,000 years. Only one, Abraham, the first Jew, saved from Babylon, directed from God 600 miles North to present day Israel. On this side of the cross, after 2,000 years the number is still small. In Ezekiel 8:12, we find the reason for most pretending (Then He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, 'The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.' ").

In ancient Israel, the leaders, probably the Sanhedrin, had a secret dark room in their house. It was in this dark room that the truth came out...their worship of idols...while pretending all the time to be spiritual and patriotic. Surely, this is the answer to the problems of political, spiritual, academic, corporate, and even leaders of families. We are pretending not to worship idols within the dark recesses of our hearts, minds, soul and even our very homes. We are pretending to love country when daily we see it sink into the mire of enslavement through the authoritarian control of Communism. We are pretending not to worship the idols of the “world” when in our churches, even our Christian schools, we are using the same idol methods of temporal existence even yielding to the temptations brought on by the marvelous technological inventions of television and the computer. Think of Satan's delight when he knows your home, your office, your church, has been demonized by the pornography and absurdities enlightened by modern technology. Light came into the world and men prefer darkness because they love their idols (John 1:4-9)

How insane that we think that we can pray to a supreme power who knows the very number of hairs on our head and pretend that he does no know what goes on in the deepest corners of our heart?

“Open my eyes, that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me.”