Pot Luck

A member of a certain pastor’s church, a very elderly lady, was in the hospital. Knowing the sun was about to set, knowing she was about to go the last mile of the way, she sent for her pastor, via her sister, so that she could make her final arrangements. In the presence of her sister and pastor, she told them what hymns she wanted sung at her funeral, what scripture she wanted read, and all the other details which she had not previously discussed with the funeral director. She said,”now pastor, this is going to seem strange to you and many people, but as I lay in my casket I want you to put a fork in my hand.” She was not obese, not known to be a big eater. She explained, “everyone will ask why and I want you to be able to tell them. I have been a member of your church for over 60 years. Supper after supper, one pot luck meal after another, as the plates are taken up off the table, you or some deacon has always said, ‘save your fork, the best is yet to come.’ I always knew there would be a wonderful dessert. I want everyone to know I am waiting for my dessert, that the best is yet to come.”

I know what she was talking about, as many church suppers as I have attended in my life, as many luncheons where I have spoken. Once, at a Christian college, the ladies brought pie to all the people at the head table, except for me. They brought me a sliced apple. The lady next to me said, “I am so sorry you are diabetic and cannot enjoy this pie.” I said,”when did you people get the idea that I am diabetic? I want my pie too!”...which I thoroughly enjoyed.

One of the greatest social acts of human endeavor: eating together, whether in a small or large group. The problem is that most of us eat too much, God was not joking when He spoke of fasting. This weekend before Easter, is a time of fasting for many people. For Baptists, fasting is a matter of eating one chicken leg. For Methodists, fasting is a matter of bringing only one casserole to the supper.

Most spoiled, overweight, indulged Americans feel that we are in the driver’s seat, in control. I have encouraged people, in writing and in speaking, to prepare for a most uncertain future by stocking up food in order to survive. We are not buying for a picnic, who cares if your children do not like certain foods, they will like anything if they get hungry and there will be many hungry people in a national disaster. The test of our Christianity will come when hungry people, those who did not prepare for the worst, are at your door begging you for your food.

For most of our lives, we have been able to live, anticipating most things, anticipating the seasons of the year, shelves and stores full of groceries. We learn, here in hurricane land that it takes just a few hours for all groceries to sell out of grocery stores. A few hours after we learn that a hurricane will hit land you cannot find bread, milk and many survival foods on grocery store shelves.

You must consider the fact that in case of nuclear disaster, an earthquake/tsunami, such as the recent one in Japan, the stores will be empty, there will be no delivery trucks on the highways. Power lines will be down, there will be no electricity for your house or for the gas stations (and this could last for months). There will be no power at the water plant, no water coming from the spigot, you can dial 911 until your fingers get tired, but as has been found in every place of disaster, you are on your own!

This year, the wheat crops were failures in Russia, Australia, and in many parts of Europe and Asia. Just as the energy prices (gasoline, etc.) are going up, so will the prices of food (triple in one year). I hear Americans speak of the quality of life as compared to those who are disabled, those who disenfranchised from the wealth of the world, as we find in third world nations. We are not alarmed about starvation from Sudan (Darfur), survivalists in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Libya.

A nation known for the killing of its unborn, can expect little mercy from a sovereign God for those who want to survive through no effort of their own. God will not judge us according to what He has not given us, but by what He has given us. We get the idea that God sits in judgment, not knowing judgment; believe me, he knows justice and will judge us with equity (Psalm 98:9).

Actions have consequences, every financial decision is a spiritual decision. Your mission field is the land you are standing on...preparing those around you for the inevitable. Many think that Jews are only supposed to worship on the Sabbath, Saturday. I believe that if you study your Bible you will find that the Jews worshiped every day, they just rested on the Sabbath. Even in the desert, the Jews kept the feast, paid the tithe.

In 1860, Americans survived on 300 calories; in 1960, it took 600 calories. Most foods today have so little nutrition. Positively the worst things we can eat are the white foods: flour, sugar, rice, simple carbohydrates. We stay hungry because our bodies are starving, starving for nourishment. The more knowledge we have, the less we know about our own welfare. There are 30 more sexually transmitted diseases now than in 1960. One fourth of all college students have a sexually transmitted disease.

Some pediatricians do not give a deformed child any nourishment, much like the ancient Romans who put deformed, unwanted babies on the streets to be killed by horses’ hooves. Earliest Christians retrieved the babies that had been put under bridges and on the streets to die and raised them.

The sovereign God of the universe probably smiles on a pot luck church supper, but not luck as it involves other life activities such as luck that you do not get a disease from sexual activity, luck that you do not use your finances unwisely, luck that you can survive a disaster without preparation, or the luck that you have not been aborted as have so many of your fellow human beings. Dr. Francis Shaffer was the first preacher of the Gospel telling us of the holocaust of abortion, hypocritical Baptists and other denominations paid no attention to abortion, they thought it was a Catholic concern, that the Catholics were the only ones interested in abortion. You do not have peace with God until your have the peace of God.

The Great Disappointment

Out of the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival which took place in the New England states (1790-1844). One Baptist group was convinced that Christ would return to earth on October 22nd, 1844. Many were prepared to leave, and when nothing happened, there was a falling away in that Baptist movement, headed by William Miller.

Since then, there have been others who have predicted a time of Christ's return. At present time, a large following on family-radio located in Oakland California, believe that Christ will return on May 21st, 2011. Under the preaching of a long-time radio preacher, Harold Campen, who has followers around the world in the millions, no secret is made of the impended rapture. I recently had my assistant print out the complete 39-page statement giving all the historical details. We are certainly told that no man knows the day or hour, and we certainly know that it can happen at anytime. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32) Like death, we believers should be prepared.

There are many uncertainties in life, increasing as we speak. One couple, both with advanced academic degrees, high salaries, having climbed the corporate ladder, were living in a penthouse in a Hong Kong hotel. Like any thinking person, they knew it was just a matter of time before a nuclear strike or some other event, creates a disaster. Life is too short, and children too precious, to stay in such a place. Most people do not realize that in any American town, there is only enough food in stores to last for four days, there are not that many warehouses, most food comes in on trucks, and in the case of a disaster, there will be no trucks transporting anything. I have encouraged people over and over to store food supplies. Even the South American Indians went to the mountain tops with their roots, fruits, meats, and freeze-dried them for any pending disaster. Those who prepared, survived.

When the disaster happens, act of man or act of God, the most important thing you can have is food and water. People in India started harvesting water many years ago, because they know there will be a shortage. The greatest problem facing the poverty-stricken country of Yemen is water, they have a 40% rate of unemployment, the country is destitute, but their greatest problem will be water.

The Hong Kong couple moved back to America, he continued with his job, she active in controlling production and survival on a farm which they had purchased. They felt it necessary to become self-sufficient, perhaps taking it to the extreme, but are able to grow all their food needs.

Professor of Anatomy, UNC Medical School, Dr. W.C. George said to me, “tell me about the farm on which you were reared.” He, like Dr. J.T. Dobbins, Professor of Chemistry, came from farms and wanted to hear all about farm-life when I was a boy. Our farm had been in the family for many generations, since the family moved down from Morristown, NJ. Each branch of the family had their own land, their own lifestyle and boundaries. All came together at the school and church, but I know that each branch of the family tree, cousins, all, had the same ideas, same methods, same practices.

On our farm, we had many apple trees, peach trees, pear trees, pecan trees, one great arbor for black grapes, one for white grapes, there were fig bushes, blueberry bushes, a large barn and pastures for cows, several pastures for hogs, a large pen for laying hens, a large pen for growing chickens. On the four hundred acres, crops were grown, mostly for sales, there were large gardens for the growing of vegetables, much was canned, dried or preserved.

This family farm, like most family farms of that time, was self-sufficient. There were wells for water all over the farm, there was a smokehouse always full of meat, a wash-house for laundry, this was before the time of appliances: electric stoves, refrigerators, washing machines, etc. There was even a cider-mill, for the making of your own vinegar. Probably from the first landing of Americans on the east coast, such as my ancestors, they were self-reliant, not depending on anyone else for anything, certainly not government.

Wood was cut from the woodlands for cooking, and for heating the house in winter. You made your own medicines, such as blackberry wine, you cared for your animals yourself. My father's mules all knew that they went to the pasture on Sunday, on the family's day of rest. Every girl knew how to cook, sew and quilt; every boy knew the essentials of farming, carpentry, shooting a weapon in order to protect the family and property. Finally, battery-operated radios, and the farm family knew about the rest of the world, that world dependent on the food-stuffs, fiber (cotton), other cash crops which they grew (tobacco, soy beans, corn, wheat, etc.) which they grew, and which they sold in town in exchange for factory-produced equipment and commodities.

Until power lines came into the country-side, our family farm, like those of my cousins, had a Delco Light system (gasoline generator with large batteries connected in series, producing enough electricity for lighting in the house and in the barns). My grandparents was one of the first farms to have a tractor, a large noisy machine, large spikes on the metal wheels (early tractors did not have tires). Most of the farming was done with mule-pulled cultivators and machinery of every type. The innovation and self-sufficiency that has made America great, on farms, factories, in commerce, is still needed. I encourage every family to stock up.

How wonderful it seems, now, in spite of the ease with which we have learned to live; just flipping a switch for everything, to have the reliance of a hand-pump for fresh water, good soil for the growing of seed, laying hens, and even family work-dogs for protection. The true test of our Christian faith will come when it will be necessary to defend, our homes, our supplies of food and water, against our fellow human beings, who have not prepared...thirsty and hungry, who will try to take such from us. “The Great Disappointment” is in having accomplished so much, to have a lifestyle of luxury; the great disappointment and useless of it all.

Strike Here First

#658

If I were not an old, totally blind man, and could still climb a ladder, I would go on top of my house and paint a big white X and under it put, “strike here first”. I want to be immediately cremated by whatever disaster hits, and it is certainly going to happen. I don't want to be left behind, subjected to the plunderers and pilferers who will be roaming the streets looking for food or anything else. I don't believe it has occurred to most people just how chaotic life will be for those left behind after a man made or natural disaster.

Most of us have spent our lives preparing … preparing for living … preparing for dying … preparing for the unexpected. But, let's face it, most of the population prepares for nothing, as with our country, reactive instead of proactive. It is inconceivable in the 21st century, that with all the technology available, that alternate airline routes are not already mapped, able to escape the umbra of any natural disaster. We know it is not true because with the volcanic clouds from Iceland, airports were shut down. In one afternoon, all the agriculture and much of the wealth of the United States can be wiped out by one volcanic eruption such as that from Yellowstone which has been showing much activity. The news people would be crying about the great Yellowstone's country club destruction in which Bill Gates, Dan Quail and Ted Turner, the club who's annual membership costs 4 million dollars and 2 million dollars for annual dues, if they could take time from talking about Tiger Woods, John Edwards or some other fornicator.

With disasters and catastrophes all around us, both man made and natural, it is hard to comprehend why intelligent people do not prepare for the inevitable … water, food, shovels, batteries, life saving medications. Most think that after a catastrophe with other than minor inconveniences, life will go on as usual. One college student said to me, “I might be without electricity but I could just eat at a fast food place”. News Flash! There will be no electricity for anyone, no water coming out of any pipes, no service stations, no delivery trucks on the highway, store shelves will be empty. Even if you can get to a hospital there would probably be no one there to care for you. Doctors, nurses, policemen, firemen, all service personnel, if alive, will be at home trying to protect themselves and their family. Certainly, people who have never worried about death or even going to hell and have made no preparation about their eternal welfare, who have just played the game and have made few preparations about survival here on this earth, a big ball of dirt surrounding magma, will not be concerned (a lost word in most vocabularies).

The wants and needs of earth are generally modified by the profiteering of war. Wars have kept the American and indeed the world economies going for a very long time. We care little about those willing to go to war, buried in military cemeteries on foreign land or those returning battered and bruised scrimping to survive on a military pension. We have cared little for the innocence, mothers and children, burned and buried, under the ravages of bombings. To show how callous the human psyche has become, just this week, an United States President, Bill Clinton, has admitted that he orchestrated the burning alive of 85 women and children at the religious compound near Waco, Texas. Can you even imagine that this piece of garbage, a pervert in any language, says he was blackmailed by Janet Reno, his Secretary of State? We feel sure that his wife, the present Secretary of State, is no better.

Offshore banks under the tutelage of the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers, the Rothschilds, Goldman Sachs, are in control of the world's money supply. Those who ride in stretched limousines have little care for the homeless trying to survive on the streets. Those who live in the luxury of Park Avenue sky scrapers, mansions overlooking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are only annoyed by talk of poverty. But, remember this, they will be the first victims of a catastrophe. Peasants in the back-wood huts of third world countries, the disenfranchised Americans living in clapboard houses in swamps will survive the catastrophe. They have their wells of fresh water, a few chickens, know how to grow some food. Closets full of fancy shoes matching the splendor of the country club, golf club, will not suffice when walking, trying to escape the ravages of an uncontrolled society.

Sir Walter Scott said, “there is only one book, the Bible”. Mother Teresa said, “do what is in front of you”. Anyone with two purkinje cells still functioning in the brain should be making preparation. We have chosen our poison, at the ballot box, installing people in office only concerned with the next election, their own welfare.

Bill Gates has not done what he has done because of his love for humanity. It is greed that has made him wealthy. Greed is the catalyst by which the wheel of capitalism turns. We have built great cities, even countrysides, even golf courses … all with magnificent buildings, traveled on magnificent planes and automobiles, lived beyond the dreams of emperors but profess a decadence sickening to intelligent thinking and blasphemy in the nostrils of all- mighty God.

God's word, the Bible, was completed in 95 A.D. A period of 1400 years elapsed between the writing of the oldest book and the writing of the newest of the 66 books. Yet, there is not one contradiction, not one promise broken, not one prophecy, until this minute, unfulfilled in this “answer book”. We do not want to hear it, more anxious in changing God than in God changing us. More concerned with what people think of us than what God knows about us. In one college, a Christian legal student group has been forced to take in non-believers … very much like the vegetarian society that was forced to take in meat eaters.

In a local college, one theater teacher was perplexed because a drama student showed so little respect for the lines in one of Shakespeare's plays. Not holding to the integrity of the lines, he wanted to make up his own. On the night of the performance, the student gave the Shakespearean lines perfectly. At the end of the play, there was one curtain call after another as the audience applauded. Afterwords, the teacher/producer of the play said to the student, “I don't understand why you changed you attitude totally to give such an outstanding performance”. The student said, “just as I went on stage, and just before my first lines, the last person to take a seat in the audience was the author himself … William Shakespeare”. (People Still see visions)

Perhaps, as individuals and as a nation we will come to a reasonable sighting of God, some vision before the “strike”.

Preperation

You can be sure, if you have two brain cells still synapsing that within the next two years there will be a series of terrorist attacks in this country. I have been thinking for many years, that the first objective of Islam would be the entertainment and porno center of the world. The Los Angeles and San Fransisco areas of California. I expected a nuclear wipe-out there and also in the New York – Chicago area. Muslims have suggested that they do not want a nuclear residual (you can not enter a nuclear zone for 50 years). Rather they want a series of explosions perhaps athletic events, shopping malls. Enough to damage and dismay a “soft” American populous who will easily give in to foreign domination and occupation thinking that giving up the wealth of the wealthy would enable the masses to keep living their lackadaisical lifestyle.

You will see lines around banks. People trying to get out money with no place to spend it. There will not be any delivery trucks on the highways. There will be no operating gasoline pumps. Grocery stores, if open, will be empty. One young person told me he expected to eat all his meals at fast food restaurants. Restaurants, fast food or other wise, will be closed. Electricity will be off. No water will be coming out of the faucets.

Katrina, was an excellent example of our unpreparedness to face a disaster of any type. Think of it. The prison doors were opened. Prisoners of every stripe were let out on an unsuspecting, unforgiving public. Men who had not experienced sex for a long time were seeking your young daughters. Homosexuals, were seeking your young sons. Crime and insolence had nothing to worry about. There were no law enforcement officers. They were at home with gasless vehicles, trying to protect their own families. Nursing home patients were left in their beds to drown as the flood waters rose. The advocates of taking away weapons were left to fight off their attackers with wooden spoons and cans of disinfectant spray. As my father taught us long ago, locks mean nothing to a thief strong enough to kick down a door.

Everyday, in every way, public service advertisements should be on every medium of communication. Reminding the public of the necessity to prepare for the eventual terrorist attack. It is not a matter of why, but when and how. Anyone, with any sense at all, knows that it is coming. We are the infidel, the enemy, only one small strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea is hated more by the Islamic world than is the United States of America. Israel has experienced their hatred for a very long time. Israel knows what it is like to hear the sound of deadly missiles. Israel knows what it is like to scrape up and bury the spattered remains of their loved ones. Just as with preparations for a hurricane, Americans should prepare for terrorism.

There will be no gas for your vehicle. If fortunate enough not to worry about nuclear fall-out have comfortable shoes you will be walking everywhere. Have batteries for flashlights and for battery operated radios. Have a shovel for a “slit trench” (ask someone who has been in the military to explain to you the function of a slit-trench. In a few words, you will not have water to flush a toilet. Elimination must take place in your yard. You dig a line trench over which you eliminate and throw in dirt afterwards. This is getting back to basics in survival. Most young, spoiled Americans have never seen an outhouse.)

Liberated women, in the front lines promoting abortion will now wish there were young fighters to protect them. Remember, those that have promoted a culture of death aborting the most innocent of human life will find there is no empathy for older people in a time of crisis. As one who has been in a cocoon of blindness, isolation for most of my life (A totally blind 100% disabled service connected veteran) I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. The politicians – bureaucrats who were elected and promised to protect you and help you, will be at home frantic curled up in a fetal position. I have lived in a hurricane area most of my life. We know they are coming every year. It never fails, every time everything, it is as if it has never happened before... Unprepared law enforcement officers will be at there homes with gasless vehicles trying to protect their families from the rampaging criminals already antagonizing our crime-ridden communities. I don't know what the spoiled youngsters and boomers will do without telephones and televisions?

Start now, fill empty juice and other containers with water and store in a bathroom or the back of an utility room. Old water is better than no water. Start now buy extra canned goods such as sweet potatoes and peanut butter, food that will not spoil and yet will give you energy. Start now, prepare for health disasters your prescriptions, oregano, charcoal for stomach upsets. There are many books available to assist you in preparing for a disaster. And it will be a disaster that may last for a very long time.

In India, I saw the “death wagons” go by every day picking up the dead bodies in the streets for Hindu cremation. In this poor country of a billion people, there are people who are born on the streets live their entire lives on the streets and die on the streets. Out walking in the mornings, even near five star hotels, a mother and her children would be getting out of a cardboard box, their home. These people are accustomed to this type poverty/death. It will be a new experience for spoiled Americans. The 1959 film, “On The Beach” demonstrated that a nuclear cloud xould destroy the world. If we are fortunate, as in Iraq dead people will be put on the streets and picked up for mass burial.

You know your body, you know yours and your families needs more that anyone else. Prepare for “life survival.” More important, now is a good time to think of “soul survival”. If you have not made that “arrangement” with an eternal God whom you can trust. Time is ticking, life has always been a matter of preparation, preparation for living and preparation for dying. We cannot afford the luxury of procrastination, denial or rosecolored glasses.