Blizzard of Discontent

Blizzard of Discontent

To show you how long ago this incident was, which took place in the gold market, Tunis Tunisia, Yasser Arafat had not yet moved his operations from North Africa to Israel. My God told me about Arafat's "stable" of young blonde European boys who lived with him. The world never said anything about Arafat's homosexuality. We know that his wife lived like a queen in a Paris hotel. (Via U.S tax dollars) Arafat was a "pretender" in the Middle East peace processes, particularly to Jimmy Carter. I had forgotten what I was doing in this gold market but an Arab woman, dressed in white, including a white burka, isolated me in a corner. She spoke perfect English, evidently not afraid that anyone else would hear her. I could tell from the openings in her burka that she was wearing gold rimmed glasses. She said, "Why don't you American's learn the truth about what is going on in this tortured North African world?"

The question still deserves an answer. After 2,000 years, this side of the cross, billions of the world's population, still lost...still never knowing the truth of sins ruin and Christ's redemption.

In this blizzard of discontent throughout the world, even those who know the truth live so recklessly-often trying to imitate their unbelieving neighbors. Even those chosen-elect, do not know the basics of Christianity. The blessedness of God's "eternal contract" with those who are his, those separated.

The greatest act of worship known to man, worthy of going to the Lord's table in remembrance of Jesus, taking every jot and tittle of the law to the cross, atonement, symbolic, wine, remembering his death for all sin...bread, healing for all disease and informative (Isaiah 53).

"For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev 17:11).

Jesus kept the pass over. It was the blood of an unblemished lamb on the door post, that saved those in the house from the death angel. No one in the house was questioned, too many have stumbled at the foot of the cross, the blood covers all. God gave his son, his son gave his life.

So many have asked why there is so much blood in the Old Testament, there was so much sin. Adam and Eve had no sicknesses-sin. By one man, Adam, sin came into the world. By one man, Jesus, all sin was forgiven, grace, faith, gift for those who will accept his salvation and Peter looking back said, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24).

We can not add anything to the transmuted symbols (bread and wine) at the communion table. Remembrance of what he did on Calvary should be uppermost in our minds, every day of our lives.

Christian discipleship is an every minute, every day, blessing. It is ridiculous to even argue with an unbeliever, "throw in pearls before swine" (Mat 7:6). "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit" (Proverbs 26:24-25).

Recently, I went to my cardiologist. Most human beings do not realize the essential importance of their circulatory system-that magnificent pump (the heart) which forces blood through the 2,000 miles of vessels in the human body, giving nutrition to the cells. If the human being understood the importance of his circulation, his blood supply, he would eat, exercise, and think with greater carefulness.

And so it is with everything else concerning the blizzard of present day living and discontent, the average citizen, attempting to hold on to his home...just trying to survive, is like the boxer in the ring against the superior tax collecting government. The government is going to eventually beat you to death. Voting makes no difference. Stalin said long ago that it is the one who counts the votes. We must get rid of electronic voting machines-discern corruptors of government. The greatest comfort-blessing of life is to know that life ends by escaping the blizzard of discontent, eternal rest-bliss for those redeemed by the blood of Christ.

Veteran's Memorial (2011)

In the modern lifestyle, we major on minor things. We often count numbers, when we should make numbers count.

The Pythagorean Theorem has 24 words, our Lord's prayer has 66 words, the Ten Commandments has 179 words, the Declaration of Independence has 170 words, the Constitution of the United States has 7,800 words including the 27 amendments, the federal regulation controlling the sale of cabbage has 26,000 words. This regulation, as well as every other regulation controlling the life of the American citizen, is just one of our many problems.

The average salary for a Washington bureaucrat is $126,000 per year. One of my friends, now deceased, Robert Futrell, a congressman's assistant, told me, without hesitation, that most bureaucrats spend their days planning for inactivity... mostly attending cocktail parties and sumptuous buffets provided by lobbyists to whom they must go for funds to support their candidates. The veteran, a type enslavement, never recovers from his time of subservient encasement. Certainly, as an officer, and in this time of volunteerism, he must prove his abilities with testing, license, memberships, etc. The bureaucrat just “knows someone”.

If not killed, disabled, the veteran is very much on his own, expected to pickup the pieces and “keep on keeping on”... paying the taxes in order that the government can keep sending out entitlement checks to 49 percent of the population.

This totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, medical officer, veteran of the Korean Era, to date has never been afforded by the government even a white cane or talking watch. The disabled veteran in supposed to have an allotment for adaptation of his home. I have offered to give $1000.00 to anyone, anywhere, that can show that this veteran has ever received anything at all from any veterans group, civic club, church, or even family member, in recognition of my service. That is alright, at the sunset of my life, I did not serve for recognition.

My friend Doris, was born and raised on a farm in south Georgia. Her father was a veteran of Korea. At age 16, her mother died. She said, “I never thought I could stop crying.” and then, a few years later, her father died, leaving she and a younger brother. While she was away in business college, her brother went to Vietnam. He returned, head wounds, loss of one eye but, he married a beautiful girl he had met while stationed in North Carolina. She moved to North Carolina to be with them and this is when I met Doris.

On the 2^nd anniversary of her brother’s marriage, his wife gave birth to a son, and the beloved wife died 10 days later. Doris began caring for this small boy, Zach, when he was ten days old. Two years later, her only brother died and then it was just she and her nephew. Graduating from High School, age 18, Zach joined the military. He was killed in Iraq. She wrote me, at least I do not have to go through another military funeral, the handing of another flag to me, drenched with my tears.

Don't allow the enemy to set the perimeters of your faith. There are times in the blackness of blindness, the depths of despair over world conditions, that you want to step into a manhole and pull the cover over it... to just escape it all. God does not put anything on us that we cannot handle... He was there before us... is always at the intersections of your life before you get there. Perhaps, several hundred times, in leading prayers at public functions, I have prayed, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16) With veterans, their families, all hard-working, God-fearing, tax-paying Americans, when you have government, you have what government can do. When you have war, you have what war can do. When you have prosperity or even depression, you have what they can do, but when you have prayer, and the grace of God, you have what God can do. With veterans, in this time of American history, we want what God can do.

Assurance of Existence

Wired within the inner being, the soul of the inner man, a need to know of a greater power than himself. On other commentaries, I have talked about various religions of the world, my inability to understand them. Perhaps it would have been different if I had been raised in a Buddhist or Hindu home, or a family that carried offerings of food to a monkey temple (Asian temples where monkeys are worshiped).

In a country guest house in Sri Lanka, I was awakened very early each morning by a brass band leading a precession of worshipers, carrying food to the monks at a nearby temple. Just as with mothers throwing their babies off the top of a temple to satisfy a ritual of worship, I cannot understand this. God has not given me the ability to understand this, except in the light of my own spiritual enlightenment...studying the laws of the ancient Jewish people, preliminary and leading to the establishment of the Christian church.

When you read in the Old Testament about the sacrifice of animals, bullocks, rams, goats, sheep without a blemish...their requirements to offer the very best of a flock, sometimes 203 a week, in observance of feast days and tithing, it occurs to you that these people: poor, needing every animal to survive, and God requiring their very best, one without a blemish. Human nature would dictate that you sacrifice crippled runts, that these people were absolute “nuts”, religious fanatics, or that they actually believed and sought righteous justification in their worship. Think of a priest, before a stone alter, blood soaked animals, and him lighting a fire to burn them. Human reasoning would say, this is a “nut” ritual. anymore nutty than a child or woman, explosives strapped under clothing, walking an congested area, blowing up everyone.

You don't have to study the Bible, just secular history and secular archeology books will teach you that there were 22,000 oxen and “sheep without number” sacrificed at the dedication of Solomon's temple. Until this very day, considered the greatest building ever built, estimated at perhaps a hundred billion. This building built without the sound of hammer or saw, covering 13 acres, the Cedars cut in Lebanon, all timber to exact specifications, floated in the Mediterranean and hauled over land to Jerusalem. We still know the exact number of men cutting trees, transporting the timbers, working on the temple, even the value of the gold in the temple. Even so, there is still debate concerning whether Solomon, son of King David, wisest and wealthiest man who ever lived, was even saved.

So it is today, those of us who give, intentionally, cheerfully, hilariously, to God...the tithe, offerings, one can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving. The essence of Christianity is Christian giving, the offering, the truest worship. Many who give, who have so many needs in life, like the ancients, are considered “nuts”, fanatics. Most Christians have heard of R.G. LeTourneau, billionaire manufacturer of earth moving equipment, who is known for giving 90% of his income to God's work. You cannot out give God, and I truly believe that God will bless your gifts, as well as you as a giver. This is the only place in God's word that God has challenged us to “prove' Him: every Christian who knows the thrill of returning to God a portion of that which is given to him, knows what I am talking about. Whether you give 10% or not, God owns 10% of everything you have.

The best way I know that you can have the assurance that God exists, is in studying human beings who know that God exists, who prove it in their life activities. I was in the Congo, traveling from Goma to Bukuvu, even then, thirty years ago, the Islamic fanatics were trying to recapture this country which had stumbled out to God, many years earlier, through through the missionary zeal of George Greenfield and other. Greenfield had buried a wife and three children on the banks of the Congo river, as undaunted, he was determined to bring the message of Jesus Christ to Africa. Just 100 years ago, at Goma, a choir of 10,000 Congolese Christians sang, “All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name” at his funeral. Since then, as in Rwanda and Uganda, Tutsi and Hutu, and until this very day, warfare between Muslims and Christians continues.

Bridges had been destroyed on the desolate Bukovu roadway, a Catholic priest driving a pick-up truck, four dying AIDS victims in the rear of the truck with a nanny goat they were milking for nourishment, talked with me about the plight of this beautiful, yet corrupted country. A country, like the world, debauched by Satanic forces, on the grace of an real and sovereign God could cause any man to give his life in such endeavor, this Catholic priest or George Greenfield.

If a Muslim mother names her son Mohammad, he is assured of heaven. I understand Islamic bombers are assured of heaven, simply by killing themselves and others. There is much about Islam, Confucius, Buddha I do not understand, but I have made an attempt to understand Christian martyrs. To whom much is given, much is required, I know that I cannot think of greater giving than the giving of God. God gave His only Son, and His only Son, has given us live. Not only an abundant life now, but eternal life.

There have always been pretenders, posers, they know who they are. Your faith demands trust in time, talent, treasure. Just as before the very foundation of the earth, many of us were chosen, elected, Christ, paying with His Own Blood for our sins and our sicknesses. Imagine living in a communist country, risking your life and your family's, for the cause of Christ. I met several Christians in communist China, Christians live and multiple in communist North Korea. I met old Christians in Russia, who have lived and multiplied under Bolshevism.

As a university student, I paid my way through many years, working at night, so I could go to class during the day. Also, I sold Bibles door to door during the summer months. In small towns I would select a boarding house where working people stayed. Ms. Lula's house was such a place, rooms rented to highway workers. Her large house was full, so she put me in a room next to a shed in the backyard. She prepared meals for all of these men, packed each a lunch. Mr. John, her second husband (her first husband had been killed as a young man), worked in construction and usually did not get home until very late. Two granddaughters lived with her, their father, Ms. Lula's son had been killed in a vehicle accident. By world standards, she had had a hard life, but you would never know it from her. She said, “God's mercy is new every day, He does not get angry with me because He has already forgiven me for all of my sins. I find something good to do for someone everyday, if I cannot say something good about someone, I say nothing.” I noticed early, that every night when Mr. John got home from work, she would have several boxes ready for him to take to certain places in the town and nearby countryside. I learned that she prepared food everyday for the sick of the community. Back then, there were no meals on wheels, very little welfare help. Ms. Lula had her own welfare organization.

In raising her granddaughters, in sending out food to the needy and the sick of the community, in being a living testimony to the many people who found refuge in her home. Her life, like the smoke from the burned sacrifices offered to God by the ancients, were a sweet flavor to God.

Ms. Lula loved religious music, kept Christian radio stations on in her house all the time. If there were a revival or tent meeting anywhere in the area, she made sure that she and I went. Ms. Lula had a real strong alto voice, everyone there knew she was in the meeting. The best thing she ever said to me, I was going home for the weekend, she said, “tell your mother, son. She did a good job.”