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.

Hoopla

We do what we do because we believe what we believe. For the born-again believer, the real Christian (saved by grace through faith plus nothing), it is hard to understand the unbelief of our fellow man. Like knowing that the human mouth contains more microbiology than the population of the world, that the folded fiat currency in our pocket contains the microbiology of about every disease known to man; we cannot understand our love for money or our carelessness about our mouths.

Even the most heathen among us knows that death is just one breath away. Our salvation depends entirely on our gift from God in the atoning death of His only Son, Jesus Christ. It seems so insane for anyone to say they do not believe in God, anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear...when in life, and certainly in death, they must depend on the mercies of God. Much like the mosquito on the railroad track screaming at the approaching locomotive just before being squished, “I don't believe in you!”

Perhaps the world's best known atheist, Dr. Richard Dawkins, Oxford University biologist and evolutionist, has said that there are no absolutes of right and wrong, no life after death, no moral standards. He has said that raising children in a religious home is tantamount to child abuse. At least Dawkins has enough backbone to defend what he believes, he has said that he wants to promote his disbelief much as a television evangelist promotes his belief.

America's best known atheist is probably Christopher Hitchens. Like Dawkins, Hitchen is a prominent writer and speaker, proclaiming his disbelief and his disdain for believers. Hitchens has said that “any little toad can be called 'reverend'”, and that he “wishes there was a hell, such as they preach, for them to go to.” He has not mellowed in his disbelief, even in his present day fight with thoracic cancer. Hitchens has said that if Satan were looking for an Olympic team, he would be the first volunteer. “I don't believe in God and I am mad with him. Christianity is lies told to young children by old men.”

Atheism is nothing new. The great poet William Blake was considered crazy in his time. For Black, Jesus Christ symbolized a vital relationship between divinity and humanity. Many have said that America is a Christian nation, because 85% of all Americans polled claim to be Christian. As we know, there is a vast difference in claiming, pretending, and commitment. If everyone who claims to be Christian were Christian, America and the world would be a far different place, we would not have such large prison populations, decadence in society, corruption in government.

Numbers are often misleading. The gay community would have you believe that 3.5% of the population are gay, the actual number is about half of that, 1.4%. With professors and even possessors, it is better to make numbers count instead of counting numbers. There are 1.7 billion Catholics in the world, Catholicism is the largest religion in America, Catholics account for 64% of the American electorate, but 54% of American Catholics voted Democrat...voted for Obama, the most pro-abortion candidate in history! This is as difficult to understand as the Jewish population of America voting Democrat: Jews voted 74% for Obama, the most anti-Israel President in history.

The tourist should be the best ambassador for their country. Americans have the desire and money to travel abroad, but American tourists have proven to be our worst ambassadors...their behavior, their dress, their arrogance. I have been in American embassies all over the world. The American ambassador has one responsibility: to give America a good name wherever he is assigned. The land on which the embassy is located is considered American soil, guarded by uniformed marines, American flag proudly displayed. Christians are ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20).

In the hoopla of modern living, your limited contacts, your family, your friends; if you are Republican, you cannot understand why anyone would be a Democrat. If you are Christian, you cannot understand how anyone could be an unbeliever, or even a Buddhist, Muslim, or Hindu. If you are an academician or social scientist, you cannot understand the conservative. If you are a Bernie or Ruth Madoff, or a George Soros, you cannot understand the conservative patriotism of the Tea Party crowd.

In the intellectual bubble, you must reflect on the racial aspects of Darwin's Origin of Species and his efforts at the preservation of races. Eugenics began in America, went across the water to Europe, to Nietzsche, Hitler and others.

There are real scientists and then there are professional scientists. Professional scientists give science a bad name...leaving pure research for the reconnoiter of grants; government and industrial largess. Christians do not believe in the God that Richard Dawkins does not believe in. It is hard to believe in randomness any more than the random selection/creation of a Shakespeare play. The believer has the ability to appreciate the spiritual aspects of a piece of music, classical or gospel, that the unbeliever could never know. God has invested in the believer, a mind, soul and spirit. Only the believer can understand the psychological as well as the physical aspects of prison overcrowding, bullying of children, grief or the unkindness to one another.

The agnostic church does not know the power of prayer. New age religions do not change lives. In the hoopla of men's wisdom, their self-aggrandizement, one must know the joy of walking from darkness into light. (John 1:5)

Kooks and Spooks

A minister friend of mine called me recently and related the details of the funeral of a man we both knew. Since I cannot see obituaries, and I hear from very few people, I did not know he had died.

This man came from a family of wealth, owners of a large farming implement and hardware distributorship. After college, his brother ran the business, and because of his efflorescent personality, he was used strictly in a public relations manner, calling on stores on the east coast, just staying in touch and keeping their business. Since this only took a few days each month, the rest of his time was spent in doing things which he enjoyed. You can say, without fear of contradiction, that he was a sportsman: hunting, fishing, golfing, season tickets to everything at the university, attending all national play-off games. He was a womanizer, adulterer, a country club “good ol' boy”, he had a repertoire of dirty jokes that could not be surpassed. He never went to church, proclaimed to be indifferent about the entire matter. My friend was his wife and two children's pastor. His wife was a remarkable Christian woman, rearing two fine children by herself.

He fell dead on the golf course, first stroke on a Monday morning. The wife, the brother could have played the hypocrisy part and had the funeral at their church, but they did not...the funeral was at the funeral home, running over with outstanding people (like the atheist Robert Ingersoll's obituary in the paper, no scriptures, no singing). An expensive casket, he, dressed in his hunting outfit, his golf trophies displayed on the end of the casket, three large, blown-up pictures attached to casket just above him. One of him with a large fish which he had caught in a contest, one of him on a golf course, holding a golf trophy, one of him in his hunting outfit, holding his gun beside a fallen deer. Before and after the service was his favorite Sinatra tunes, a recording of his alma mater song, a recording of the navy hymn (since he had serviced two year in the Navy) were played. Her minister, my friend was used just in a prayer. One of his Unitarian pastor golfing buddies was used for the eulogy, of course, he talked about universal restoration, that he was now on the golf links of heaven. A totally likable man, but totally lost.

There is nothing the human mind enjoys more than deception. The first thing Jack Lulanne gave up when he started on his health quest was sugar. Sugar is the most addictive substance known to man and can destroy the body. We live in a world of diabetes, so much sugar comes from the pulpit, “everyone who dies is going to heaven.” The older I got, the more I realized how little I knew when young. I had studied subliminal perception, been exposed to Chinese indoctrination and mind control during the Korean conflict. One night, in the officer's quarters of the Army hospital, where I was on staff, an officer who had been a prisoner of the Chinese in Korea, began to throw things at the television. He said, “this thing is following exactly the mind control tactics which we swallowed in Korea.” He said, “they have captured every form of mind control and now use it on television to control the American people.”

This week, at a lavish dinner put on by Obama to honor the Chinese premier, a Chinese pianist, played the victory song from the Korean war. The song “My Homeland” portrays American troops as “jackals”. One foreign guest said later that “it was supposed to be an insult to Obama and his Americans, but they were too stupid to be insulted. They were oblivious to what was happening.”

We know that from 1950 to around 1970, MKULTRA (ultimate mind control) was used by American forces in military situations. Many of us were probably subjected to it, mind control about many things. It was far more effective with trauma, those who had been wounded, and we have learned that it is far more effective with a nation that is wounded such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 episode. Almost like hypnotism, psychologists and psychiatrists unable to disassemble it's effects, we have mind control in the country involving everything, which has resulted in political correctness, an almost total control by government and media.

No one has been able to convince me yet that a nation that has come so far has fallen so fast, that we have lost all of our values. We learn that 90% of all 10^th grade students have experimented with alcohol. College students spend more money on alcohol than books. 60% of all college girls have STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), 1/3 of all American college students use marijuana. Those my age have seen America change completely in our lifetime, we live longer, the American man can expect to leave to age 77, females to age 79. Just 100 years ago, the life expectancy was only age 40.

The home has become a filling station, changing and filling. The church, just a habit. The baptistry is the least used area of the church. We say we want consistency, honesty, truth, but in every way, every day, we chose deception. Perhaps the greatest deception is in music, man is a music receptor. King David was 62 when Solomon was born, the Old Testament is filled with David's music, words and instruments. Solomon, King David's son; the greatest temple in the world was filled with music, Solomon wrote over 1000 songs (1 Kings 4:32).

The failures of this world are simply a failure of education, we must learn that students aged 10-20 live for music. Classical music is not popular with the young, starting in 1960, it was learned that rock n' roll, beat and words, cause sexual arousal, Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, leading to drugs and mind control. Bruce Springsteen and others teach rock music as a form of religion. Like the new television program “Skins”, popular in England, exploiting every youthful decadence, nudity, drugs, prostitution, homosexuality, an attempt to make the things which God hates totally acceptable by young people. The greatest words or song for a young person, Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)