Straight Talk

Straight Talk

"The democracy will cease to exist will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

- Thomas Jefferson.

            This writer is a totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, medical officer, veteran of the Korean War era.  I have been totally blind for most of life, now age 84.  One person accused me of being a victim, I am more a victim of the despair brought on by the complete unconcern of my fellow man than anything else.  If I have learned nothing else in my many years of disability it is that most people care only for themselves.  I have found those who care the least - family, fair weather friends, associates, even those who claim the name of Christ, disparage me the most. 

            Most of those around us just go through the motions.  It is like this perpetual-continual (have a good day) when they could care less about what kind of day you may have.  God knows what he is doing when he causes or allows blindness, cancer, or anything else.  The greatest blessings of my life have come to me because of blindness.  Because, I have had a relationship with my Creator which I would probably never have had otherwise.  But, I must admit, I have had a hard time understanding the minds of those who should care.  It makes no difference how generous or genuine to your own family, your own Christian-church associates, your neighbors, your tenants, even your employees -- whatever I do is never enough.  Never, not once, has my only child or my only two grandsons, ever given me one gift at any holiday, birthday or when on a visit (usually only once a year)... NOT EVEN ONE COOKIE even though they know how much I love sweets.  Most people, over the years, since I have gotten very few things from anyone... have the mantra - what can we give someone who has everything, needs nothing?  What can you give God who has everything and needs nothing from you?  At this late date, it is time many of us consider many things. 

            This writer, as I have already said, a blind veteran, received treatment at many hospitals (the longest time and best treatment, Massachusetts General in Boston).  I was at the veterans hospital in Durham, right across the street, Duke University Eye Center.  The VA put me there because they had better specialists to care for me.  I was in the corner room on the second floor.  This was during the time of the Vietnam era war, protesters from UNCH (where I graduated), Duke and other schools in the area were protesting the war around the VA hospital.  A black nurse came into my room, told me how much she hated veterans and spat in my face.  The VA, Duke, nor Dr. Anderson who was treating me did anything about this incident even though they were informed.  Those who go to VA facilities can understand what I speak about when I say there is no agency or administration as inept at the Veterans Administration.  They are just going through the motions.  Just this week, my driver took me to a VA facility, the haphazard attitude of the employees was beyond description.  And, it does no good whatsoever to report bad attitudes, bad care or inept management.  Even our NC senator, Richard Burr, ranking member of the Veteran's committee, even the Blind Veterans Association, even the ranking member of the House Veteran's committee, Myke McIntrye, from this area or Walter Jones, also from this area, have any empathy for veterans. 

            There is a big difference between walk and talk.  We hear talk about government waste.  Government healthcare... There will never be a better example of the lackadaisical attitude than that which I have already expressed in a blog I have titled "National Self Immolation - 1603" found in my blog dated December 19, 2013. 

            In this blog, I described, in detail and have hundreds of pictures to support every statement (by the way, I have never received any requests from a government-agency about pictures or information, even though I wrote many letters).  Fourteen rooms, one total floor in one of my buildings, was rented to an organization called Circle of Courage Ultimate Support Network.  Of course the rental-lease was handled by a realtor, but the chieftain of the group told me that her patients/clients were all Medicaid patients.  In other words, the government spent millions of dollars sending mentally sick people to this group and we found out, after much investigation, those there to treat these mental patients, dispensing God only knows what drugs, did not have a license to practice anything.  Of course, the taxpayers were cheated, the owner of the building was cheated because he didn't receive his rent, the NC Department of Labor was cheated because they did not get their taxes (they told me $150,000), but I think the MOST CHEATED were the patients who were there because they needed help and thought they were getting help.  I remember so well, after they had abandoned their office, turned off electricity, cut off the phone, left all of their records in the office, two black people banging on the door yelling they needed their drugs.

            My assistants described the situation to me and made photographs.  Read to me from some of the records scattered around on the floors the following examples:  (A)  Patient DJ, age 14, diagnosis: "Oppositional Defiant Disorder - description: behavior such as back talking, suspended from school, etc."  (B)  Patient JG, age 8, diagnosis:  "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - history of physical abuse since the age of 3, having outbursts of anger and difficulty focusing."   On one sheet of paper found on the floor along with thousands of records, an evaluation of the services.  On this piece of paper, the following five items were found in default:

            1-Improper document

            2-Notes missing on dates of treatment

            3-Patient Care Plan not in file or completed correctly

            4-Signatures with credentials of clinician missing

            5-Incidents reports not reported in a timely manner to IRIS (NC Incident Response Improvement System)

            This writer, owner of this building, always went into the reception area to pick up his rent check.  I have all of the e-mails, telephone calls about the delinquent rents.  The daughter of the director worked in the office and handled this (she worked in an office behind the sliding glass window, which all of you have seen in such offices.).  Always, the excuse for late rent and later for no rent or worthless checks, the government has not paid us.  I said, "Surely as much money as the government has!?"  She said, "And, we get all we can.  This is the reason we have two hands."

            Just a fraction of the American population have died in war.  A larger percentage wounded in war.  Those who have given their all, our hard working, God fearing, tax paying ancestors, would never believe what has happened to our world.

Conjurers of Deceit

Conjurers of Deceit

         
    Excerpt from the poem, "The Voice of the Voiceless"
The same Force formed the sparrow 
    That fashioned man, the king; 
The God of the Whole gave a spark of soul 
    To furred and to feathered thing. 
And I am my brother's keeper, 
    And I will fight his fight, 
And speak the word for beast and bird, 
    Till the world shall set things right.
Let no voice cavil at Science-- 
    The strong torch-bearer of God; 
For brave are his deeds, though dying creeds, 
    Must fall where his feet have trod. 
But he who would trample kindness 
    And mercy into the dust-- 
He has missed the trail, and his quest will fail: 
    He is not the guide to trust....

            Jesus Christ is the light of the world.   To solve our problems we must get close to the light.  For a person to be effective in lying-deceit, everyone wants to believe in him.  Has anyone ever considered how disappointed Jesus must have been with Judas?  Judas, who had seen Him raise the dead and feed the thousands, was there when, Jesus, on His last night, washed all of the disciples' feet including the feet of Judas.  Any group, any mob, always made up of people...  Who can know or understand what thoughts are conjured in the minds of people?  Certainly not the psychologist or psychiatrist... they just think they know.   Yet, most believing pastors will send troubled church members to unbelieving psychologist or psychiatrist for help.

            The distance between the earth and the sun is 92 million miles, yet, this is a very short distance compared to the distance one must travel in attempting to discover the reasons for certain human activity-thoughts.  From the beginning of time, a man's inhumanity against his fellow man, the first two sons born on earth, Cain & Able -- Cain killed his brother Able.  Our minds are tortured as we read historical accounts about the torture of men.  Can one imagine conquered soldiers-slaves marched naked and chained behind conquering soldiers?  Can one imagine families broken up as they were sold into slavery?  More remarkable, even to this very day and every day, when 3,000 babies (1,400 black babies) have been murdered (56 million babies murdered in America alone since the Supreme Court decisions of 1973), imagine mothers submitting to the murder of their own baby within their own body?  We cringe when we study, even in my lifetime, the cruelty of the KKK, Hitler's holocaust, and Stalin's extermination of their fellow countrymen.

            Make friends with fear.  If not yet, it is heading your way.  Most of our fellow countrymen are just going through the motions.  When we lose our democratic republic, at the court house - state house - white house, and we are well on our way, when the cause of Christ becomes more a mockery at the church house than it already is, we are all going to wish we had done more to save our country and our Christian way of life.  Why can't Americans, who work themselves to death paying taxes and saluting the flag, see the futility of it all, the "ketchup king" (secretary of state), the pretender president in the white house who never fired a Daisy BB gun getting your children involved in more and more wars?

            This writer, world traveler, totally blind veteran, has some familiarity with war and the results of war... In Leningrad, Russia, I saw long lines of people outside of any store that had anything to sell.

            Every minute of every day real men and real Christians should be praying for God's direction of our lives.  Civilization, even the advanced civilization that we enjoy, is just a systematic organization of matter.  Most people I know, most children raised today, want to be celebrities instead of servants.  This writer's greatest disappointment has always been with family, friends and associates.  Most, just don't care.  And, they actually think God needs them... that they can just mess around with God and play games... that He actually did not mean what He said in His book.  In fact, most people I know cannot quote one verse of scripture from God's book.  The Jewish people, young Jewish boys, knew the Torah by heart.  We know how God judged them.  Don't laugh or scorn those of us who really believe, 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.'  Philippines 2:5.   

            IF, you knew you were the heir or the even joint heir of a fortune, that the will would be read at a

lawyer's office and it was necessary for you to be there, your car "conked" out a mile from the city where the will and last testament of your benefactor was to be read, you would walk and run with joy the last mile of the way.  Satan has conjured up every form of deceit with which he can beguile you... to keep you from your inheritance, your redemption.

Refine It, and Sweeten It, and Sanctify It!

Refine it, and sweeten it, and sanctify it!

(Alexander Smellie, "The Hour of Silence" 1899)

"The tongue has the power of life and death!" Proverbs 18:21 

"For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body." James 3:2 

My tongue is a great power. 
Its words wound--or else they cure. 
They poison--or else they bless. 
Once they have gone forth from me, shot like arrows into the air--they will find their lodgment, and they will accomplish their errand. 
I cannot recall them. 
I cannot cancel and undo them. 
For weal or for woe--they have sped away from me. 

There is a sense in which my words are my deeds; they achieve as much--of mercy or of misery, of healing or of harming--as my actions do.

Far too often my tongue has been an agent of mischief and hurt. It has spoken untenderly or untruly, harshly or hastily. 

My tongue has suggested unworthy motives to the deeds of others. It has magnified their failures and errors. It has been a firebrand. It has distributed bitter and corroding acids--instead of the honeycomb. Sometimes it has been the propagandist of actual sin!

My Lord, consecrate and keep this tongue of mine. Refine it, and sweeten it, and sanctify it! May it love . . .
  the voice of prayer, 
  the voice of confession, 
  the voice of encouragement, 
  the voice of consolation and comfort, 
  the voice of worship and thanksgiving!

Source:  Grace Gems - March 5th, 2014

*****************

            Many years ago, one of my cousins, now long dead, thinking I had kept up with family history better than he, asked me if I knew the burial place of his great grandparents.  Like so many, too late, he had revived his interest in his family's genealogy.  Of course, he knew that it had many years since I had seen anything.  I told him, "I understand that the Underwoods were buried in the Falling Creek Baptist Church cemetery.  Someone said that during a hurricane, at some time in the past, the tombstones had been toppled over and were still laying on the ground."  You see, this is how much appreciation we show to our ancestors.  The ones who fought the good fight to give us our heritage.  Their voices and their bodies are long gone and we don't even know or protect their burial places.  Every time I've passed an old cemetery, so many, so many graves, old tombstones, I think how soon they have all been forgotten. 

            At a family reunion, one of my aunts had used her new recorder.  She was so proud of having recorded-preserved voices of old family members, now long dead.  I remember the very distinctive voice of Aunt Sarah, still very alert at 98.  Surely some of her great grandchildren, etc. would have liked to have heard her voice.  But, the aunt is long dead and there is no telling what happened to the recording.  This is how much family history, family voices, means to those who are left behind. 

           

            This antiquarian book collector, buying and selling collectibles every day around the world, has purchased boxes of old books from several families.  In the boxes, in the books, such wonderful family member memorabilia, such as old photographs, and of course, no one had taken the time to write on the photograph who it was, date, or relationship.  In a day even children carry around a telephone with which they can make pictures.  In my lifetime, photographs were very rare.  I well remember the first color film.  Several generations ago, many people lived their entire life without ever having their "picture taken."  The old box camera was very evident when I was a child.  Almost as important as in care in what we say, "words mean something," is remembering voices, the conservation of family history, and protecting photographs.

Clarify of Opamism

Clarity of Opamism

Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.  (Isaiah 13:2)

            In the 21st century world of staggering technology Christians must be convinced to "taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who trusts in him."  Psalm 34:8.  In the 21st century world of playing church we must clarify the opamism that perhaps God will start over with us. 

            There is nothing natural about the isms (communism, fascism, atheism) of life.  Nothing in natural law, animal life, for which human beings should aspire-accept these silly ideologies.  We live in a supernatural world.  The Christian belief is, in every way, supernatural.  Our radical unbelieving friends read about, gorge themselves watching screens (movie, TV) about J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter's dragons-witches-ghosts, all types magic, but so quick to ridicule praying, foot washing, Lord's table Christians.  Carl Sagan (Cosmos) said, "This is it.  There is nothing more.  Anything else is just wishful thinking."   The atheist, scientist friend, further said to me, "I live according to a strict code of ethics, take advantage of all science, long life or short life, I will just die, be buried, rot, and my body used for fertilizer." 

            Observing the handiwork of the Creator every day.  How is it possible for one not to believe in a supreme designer?  Observing the great artist canvases of the world, machinery of every type, miracles of technology making life so much easier, how could anyone deny a designer?  This writer was speaking before a ministers' conference, I heard several of the preachers talking about the magnificence of the computer.  In my remarks, I said, "I heard talk about the memory-megabytes of the computer.  This world traveler has observed glaciers at both the North and South Pole, 200 million square miles of ice formed by snowflakes turning into crystals.  Could the human mind believe there are not two snowflakes with the same design in all of this world, not two grains of sand alike on the vast seashores of this world, of the billions of human beings who have lived on this earth, 7 billion today and at least 7 billion dead before this day, no two humans with the same flecks in the iris of their eyes, no two with the same finger prints, same voice?  May God forgive us forsaking His book-His wisdom-His redemption!"

            It is believed that 3 million Jewish slaves left Egypt, not a feeble one among them, all healed (Psalm 105).  God chose to save them, feed them, lead and humble them (their shoes, of iron and brass, their clothing never wore out - Deuteronomy 33:25).  World history is colored with ways He touched them.  The many who fell in the wilderness because of their unbelief, the many who have lived and died in unbelief, both before the cross and after the cross, never knew the touch, the supernatural opamism, of God's grace.  A child who is never touched, soon dies.  The most rabid unbelievers-atheist surely observe that even lower animal life touch and caress their young.  On the farm, our beautiful cow with great struggle would give birth to a calf.  The calf, hoofs covered with a sheath to prevent damage to the cow's birth canal, would struggle up onto its feet.  The mother cow would immediately lick-touch the calf from one end to the other.  So it was with baby chicks, baby kittens or puppies.  Genus homo like all fauna creation needs the supernatural touch.  The affirmism of the human nervous system (the crowning glory of man) is beyond compare.  No matter how many times you autonomic nervous system prepares for any eventuality, you can not predict what will happen.  More is needed than the stability of self.  We all have a need for an all encompassing external and internal power.  No matter the preparation, 79% of warfare trainees (soldiers on the front lines) do not fire a weapon.  The are 16,025 school boards in America.  Most realize the failures of school systems.  Few school board members, few elected officials, legislators, can produce that quality-integrity which will cause them to fight and risk everything for a supernatural inner knowledge which they possess, but do not trust, and instead choose cowardice.  The writer, C.S. Lewis, said, "Some would rather bear pain than let others know about it."  If Christians were as anxious to promote Christianity in their walk as in their talk, many unbelievers would seek Christ.  If politicians really believed in the value system of a democratic republic, our nation would rise as a true super power.

            Even in America, 1799-1892, declared even by the US Supreme court as a Christian nation, one third of our young people have had no experience with religion, 40% of all high school students have had several sexual escapades.

            You have only one life, you go around only once, this is not a dress rehearsal.  Stop worrying about what other people think.  That is their problem.  Your thinking, your opamist ability, is yours.  Your wonderful mind belongs to no one else, but you.  Within the sanctity of your own-personal mental capacity, you have the right to dream and conquer.  Believe me, you may think others care about you, but they don't.  Don't be afraid to be lonely.  Learn the affirmism of self.  More importantly, the Creator of the universe is your best friend.  As he has told this old, blind, disabled man so many times, when becoming so disappointed with others, "I am all that you need."      

Incredible Insurance

"Incredible Insurance"

 

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness: and all these things shall be added to you.

(Matthew 6:33)

            Freedom is the inherent right of all men.  Truth leads to freedom.  (John 8:32)  Jesus told us that He is the truth.  (John 17:17 & John 14:6)  God's greatest gift to man, liberty and free will.  Until Christ becomes preeminent, your life committed to Him, you are as lost as the unbelieving sinner because you do not have the trust in Him which He demands.  God demands trust.  We say we believe, but our actions say otherwise.  We want to trust in the sovereignty of God, but in the caldron of daily activity we lose so quickly, that trust. 

            The largest-tallest buildings in any city are buildings owned by great insurance companies.  The three tallest buildings in the city of Chicago are insurance buildings.  In 2012 1.1 trillion was spent on casualty insurance in America.  America spends more on warfare than the rest of the world combined, 652 billion dollars.  America furnishes 30% of NATO's budget and NATO spends 60% of all money on warfare.  In my lifetime (84 years), health, automobile and life insurance have become basic requirements.  Even on the farm, God's most independent people rely on crop insurance... insurance against wetness, dryness, storms.  The lands on which my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents farmed... suffered through times of draught and drowning, now, those same crops are insured.  Recently, on these farms when the crops "drowned," the crops were just "cut up by tractor machinery," destroyed, and the insurance collected. 

            The lack of trust in God not only to save our souls, but to bless us with abundance (John 10:10) in our lives, is a loss to us.  In not willing to face our "predicaments" with trust in God, we place ourselves with the same attitude as the unbeliever.  We expect the unbeliever, those who do not trust in God, to seek protection by way of insurance-government-welfare rolls.  God has assured those who believe and trust in Him that He knows our needs, "He will never leave us or forsake us."  (Hebrews 13:5) 

            WHEN the unsaved, the unbeliever, sees the Christian whose trust and faithfulness depends on the grace of God, exercising the same doubts and fears of those who do not have faith or trust, WHAT a testimony!

            In truth, if Christians, because they are suppose to depend on their faith in the grace and mercy of God are fraught with fear, they then become worse than the unbeliever.  In truth, Republicans, because they are suppose to have a higher standard of morality and values, get caught in the mire of government programs, supposed need for insurance protection, are no better than democrats.  At the democrat's convention in Charlotte, NC, the democrats wanted God taken out of their programs, through entitlements-subsidies-controlled programs.  Democrats want government to be high on the alter of their life agenda.  Democrats go so far in their pagan, non-God ideology that they easily murder the innocent unborn, proudly promote homosexuality of every type before God and man.  YET, those who claim the name of Christ, who certainly should believe in the protection of God, like ENVYING their unsaved friends and family members who are hob-knobbing-drinking and playing at the clubs, cast God aside as they want to dress-drink-dance to the tunes of the world-flesh-devil. 

            The most incredible insurance of which man can conceive, trusting for protection from the Creator of the universe, the One who not only through the stars in space, but can heal-halt heap blessings on those who love Him and curses on those who hate Him.  He is able and incredible insurance.  He is able to heal all sickness, harass every enemy of the faith and harbor you in safety. 

            Only the most naive among us will refuse to see how fast the nations of the earth are going down the drain.  This is what happens when insurance buildings become higher than church steeples.  One criminal activity after another, not just in the bleak places in your town, but in the bright lights of your city, not just with those who are exceptionally ignorant, but also with those who are exceptionally bright.  The cross of Christ on the top of most church steeples tells the world that people of faith have a protector.  The insurance corporate edifices above us all tell the world that man wants controls, not freedom or liberty, that man made protection is superior to creator God who designed everything.  We have thousands of miles of blood vessels in which life circulates in the human body, life is in your blood.  Your insurance policy will pay for guess work... large cathedrals of treatment, big Pharma making fortunes on God-given chemicals, people who actually think they know something about the human body and will act if paid enough.  Sovereign God knows the very number of hairs on your head.  (Luke 12:7)  He knows about all of the electric current which flows through the wires in your house.  Man has always believed in a superior power, the Romans - Jupiter, the Greeks - Zeus, the Egyptians - Ra.  This world traveler has seen worship of every type... men crawling up hills, flogging their bodies, feeding snakes and monkeys, all attempting to satisfy a basic human need for worship of someone/something greater than self. 

            Christianity is not complicated, just tough.  The Christian message is not complicated (follow me).  The Christian prayer is not complicated, just, "Lord help me."   (Matthew 14:30)   

            One of my employees, a Seventh Day Adventist, after driving me to vote, said, "Real Christians, certainly members of Seventh Day Adventist, do not vote because we know we are bringing down condemnation on ourselves.  We rapidly realize the futility of our vote."  When you depend on insurance and you go through the harassment of the insurance company seeking every reason to not pay, you realize the futility of insurance.  When you hear about your nation and world's conditions, even criminal darkness in your own town, you realize the futility of voting... which has resulted in such politicians-law enforcement.  The Christian has no place to go except to the word of God, the Creator of the universe and our confidence in Him.  Our faith, a verb, action, based on belief, sustained by confidence, such incredible insurance and assurance.

What would Jesus think?

This Rockwell painting recently sold for 46 million dollars.

Romans 8:16-17

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁶ The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

¹⁷ And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

No Christian is where he ought to be spiritually

(A.W. Tozer)

No Christian is where he ought to be spiritually, until the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ is being reproduced in his daily life!

Yet even though a person has become like Christ, he will not know it--because humility and meekness are also a part of the transformation of true godliness!

"Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did!" 1 John 2:6

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

                 We all read the book, "In His Steps," by Charles Shelton.  We have all heard the phrase, "What would Jesus do?"  It is far, far, more important to consider, "What would Jesus think of me?" 

                 We are very concerned about, "What will people think?"  Whether a politician, pastor, poet, everyone is concerned about what people think of them.  Many of us spend our entire lives working, sweating to have letters after our name (MD, DO, JD, AIA, etc.) I have known men and women who spent their entire lives working hard, living frugally to amass a large estate.  I certainly admire men and women who achieve an education and wealth, much more than those who just throw their lives away, never achieving or acquiring anything.  In this day of the welfare mentality full of entitlements and subsidies too many children are raised in homes with a carefree (it feels good do it) attitude.  There is real honor in hard work, real satisfaction in accomplishment.  I do believe my mother, grandmothers, women whose real accomplishment was the raising of children, providing a good example of the wife and mother in the community, were given, by God, a look far down the road, happenings after they were gone, to know the blessing of THEIR achievements. 

                 I so remember, the Sunday afternoon, when I took my parents in my car to the home of my sister.  My mother had been diagnosed with cancer.  In her wisdom, she knew she did not have long to live.  My sister had just given birth to the only female grandchild.  I remember my sister laying this beautiful baby in my mother's lap and my mother looking at the baby with such love. I believe she realized she would never see this child grow up, become a beautiful girl, graduate from Salem College, become a beautiful bride with a beautiful wedding, have own home and children, but I believe God, in his love-grace-mercy, gave her a look down the road.  It is essential that human beings, particularly those of use who are joint heirs with Christ know that our efforts in attainment, whether education, finances, or otherwise are not in vain and certainly, for those who live the simple, blessed lives, the real heroes of the world, parents, professors, pastors, who give encouragement and who make it all possible, surely must have a very special inheritance.      

Quarantine

"Quarantine"

Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.  Psalm 60:12

            The greatest trust-quarantine known to man is just turning something over to God and then just leaving it alone.  Most of us want to interfere with God's work, thinking He needs our help.  IF mortal man could only understand, the power, the grace, the mercy of God.  For God to be God, He does not need anything, just for US to trust enough to turn everything over to Him... our health, our wealth, our future, now and then. 

            Before the telescope, the microscope, any knowledge of scientology, cardiology, or any of the isms that should be was-isms (fascism-communism-atheism), God was in charge.  The ancients, even the old testament prophets of four thousand years ago, even the purveyors of false religions knew there were universal-ecliptic-unsighted powers greater than themselves.  It took a long time for surgeons to learn to wash their hands, uninitiated civilizations to learn to put netting over bodies to keep out insects, to bury their dead away from drinking water sources.  Scripture reminds us that it is the small foxes that spoils the vines (Song of Solomon 2:15), but now, even in the 21st century, in spite of electronic microscopes, so much university knowledge, we still use radiation to cure cancers caused by radiation, we use chemicals (chemotherapy) to cure cancer caused by chemicals.  Forgive me, I did not mean cure.  You do not use the word cure with any disease anymore, just treatable.  If you have not learned, you will learn, that it is up to you to quarantine yourself and your family from the dangers of the world, including care for your body.  Old doctors would not have believed that in a time of modern western medicine the infant who escaped abortion, depending upon the immune system of the mother, as a quarantine against disease, would be immediately punctured with needles to kill off natural immunity. 

            In the mockery of our system in superiors simply because of advanced technology-education (even children talking on phones in their hands), two thousand years after the cross of Christ, we still have more people in the world who are hungry than fed, still depend on torture in warfare.  It should be an insult to thinking people and an embarrassment to God, that even those who believe and trust in Him, give more credence to those in the cistern of disbelief (evolution, supremacy of man) than the proven waters of trust-integrity eternal satisfaction from God's deep well.  When will we learn to separate-quarantine ourselves from disbelief?  When will we learn the uselessness of wrestling (Ephesians 6:12) the world, the flesh, the devil, THAT, the whole armor of God is all we need (Ephesians 6:11), THAT greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.  (I John 4:4) 

            We think we are so smart, degrees, post graduate education, oh the limited mind of man!  In two hospitals, one army, one civilian, just as the dead are children of the dead, just as all dead look like crushed wax paper, this writer-army medical officer, roused the sleeping dead by telling them about their lack of quarantine against disease (carpeting in corridors on which very ill surgical patients were moved, drapery-overstuffed chairs in patients' rooms where microbes of any type could take harbor,  smell of perspiring visitors as the bacteria-toxins on and in their bodies escaped, etc.) .  Any patient, ill enough to be hospitalized, should not have visitors.  Take seriously the matter of immunology which, in the long run, depleted or otherwise, is your only "firewall" against a certain death, in many cases.   Like religion, like politics, like character, so much of our destination is just talk. 

            Many often mean well in their quarantine.  In the "foggy bottom"  of legislative committees of confusion-federal state local, much talk, many tax dollars spent, little accomplished.

            Most of us know there are only three grids of electricity in USA... Eastern, Pacific, Texas.  If terrorist eliminate one grid, the nation will panic.  Yet, never a word from power brokers or talking heads, preparing for this eventuality.  Like eating sensibly, every family should prepare-quarantine itself against the "walking warp" of the unintelligent.  Ambition usually makes men crazy about reality... making money, sports careers of other men, the endless attempt to impress someone (either further up the ladder or below you on the ladder).  Man has the need to excel.  Every politician sees in his mirror himself in higher office.  It is only with the welfare state, an addiction to entitlements-retirements, that men have stopped longing for a good bottom-line.  As dust covers the bible, God's own words to the world, as the great separation of man's wealth and accomplishments widens (a very small percent controls all of the world's wealth), as religious zealots (1.5 billion Muslims) are really willing to die in order to live in paradise (suicide bombers), the time for eternal life, life after death, evaluation not speculation, requires quarantine.  You are either lost or saved, a living epistle (2 Corinthians 3:2), or dead in your sins.  Why the hypocrisy?  We may fool others, but not self.  Immunize self against sin and rejection through the redemption provided with God.  God, creator of the universe, who has the very number of hairs on your head numbered, gave His best, His only son.  What makes us think we can escape the wrath of God, the denial of His son, by not separating, immunizing, quarantining ourselves against everything which God hates? 

Matthew 6:24

King James Version (KJV)

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Dipping from the Cistern

"Dipping from the Cistern"

Choice gems from William Gurnall

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The gospel is God's heart in print!

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That book must be worth reading--that has God for the author!

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Do not say that  you love Christ, so long as you can lay those sins in your bosom--which plucked His heart out of His bosom! It were strange if a child should keep, and delight to use, no other knife but that with which his mother was stabbed to death!

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The pleasures of sin must needs be short, because life cannot be long--and they both end together. 

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Cease to pray--and you will begin to sin. 
Prayer is not only a means to prevail for mercy--but also to prevent sin.

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To forsake sin, is to leave it without any thought reserved of returning to it again. 

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The sheep may fall into a ditch--but it is the swine that wallows in it!
Take heed of deliberate sins! 

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"He who is his own teacher, is sure to have a fool for a master!"

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Of all men out of Hell, none more to be pitied than he who hangs over the mouth of it, and yet is fearless of his danger.

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A Christian should deny himself of the world's carnal joys and delights, lest the ungodly say, "These Christians draw their joy out of our cistern!"

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He who has God's heart--cannot lack His arm!

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It is impossible for an evil heart, to think well of an afflicting God.

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"Faithful are the wounds of a friend--but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Proverbs 27:6 God's wounds cure--sin's kisses kill.

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            Living among those who call themselves Christians for so many years, I am convinced that most have no foundation at all in Christianity.  I asked one deacon in a Baptist Church, "Do you really believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead?"  He claimed to believe in Jesus, the power of God, wanted to believe in life after death, but really did not believe that Jesus was raised from the dead... so his entire faith was in vain, his church life a fraud.   Even Jesus' disciples, those who knew Him best, were transformed after His resurrection.   You must believe in the rebirth of the Holy Spirit in your life (your old man of sin and rejection replaced by the Holy Spirit of Christ, Christ living in you, a new creation).

            I have asked college students if they had been convinced by their educated professors about evolution.  Again, they want to hum and haw about believing in God.  The devil believes in God and trembles (James 2:19).  I say to the same college student, "You have seen many machines, much technology, do you actually think these machines just "fell" together, evolved?  That today's technology was not designed by a superior mind?"  God has given us His manufacture's handbook, His answer to every question.  Two thousand years on this side of the cross, are we still too stupid to believe and study every word in His book?

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.  

Consistent Inconsistency

Consistent Inconsistency

GOD, give us men! 

A time like this demands

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;

                        by Gilbert Holland, "God, Give Us men!"

            In F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, the Great Gatsby, the main character, who lived next door to Gatsby, said, "My father said to me, one can not be too judgmental or critical of others because many have not had my advantages."

            In my lifetime (84 years), I have witnessed the effeminizing of men.  A day does not go by  anymore, that you do not hear of a sports figure "coming out of the closet," proud to announce his homosexuality.  In the Satanic gay agenda everything directed toward the destruction of the home, the despising of Christianity, 

            There was a time that older men whether a farmer or banker, doctor or lawyer, gained much satisfaction in the mentoring-tutoring of younger men.  They were not afraid to be seen in public... an old man eating in a restaurant with a young man.  Now, because of the stupidity of television programs, every young man is so afraid that he will be classified by someone as having "sugar daddy."  One of my old, very heterosexual, very decent-lovable, uncles said to me, "I used to enjoy hugging my nephews, even young men in the community who were coming home from college.  I wanted to show them my interest in them.  The fact, and it is a fact, that I missed them, cared for them, wanted nothing but the best for them.  Now, much to my sorrow, I am afraid I will embarrass them."  

            The real man doesn't care what people think.  The real Christian man was never reluctant to lead public prayer at the church house, stand up for decency at the court house, demand absolutes at the school house.  The founding fathers of our nation, on the way to the church house, not only carried his bible, but his musket as well.  It was up to him to defend his family and his nation.  It was up to him to show the world around him whose side he was on... he was on the Lord's side and was not ashamed of God's book.  At the church, you could hear men's voices leading in the singing the great hymns of faith.  His integrity could not be bought at the court house.  The real man wanted his children taught the essentials of education, not just entertained at the school house.  God help the teacher who made sexual advances towards his child, male or female.  

            A blade of grass appears formidable to a small insect.  Under an umbrella of political correctness, the average man has decided to just go through the motions... raising a family, providing mere lip service to secular as well as spiritual activities.  "Let the politicians handle it... that is what all of my taxes pay for.  Let the do-gooders in the civic clubs handle it, that is what they raise money for."    The consistent inconsistency involves the fact that everyone is just going through the motions, doing as little as possible to just get by and get paid.  In 1871, Frederick Nietzsche,  God is dead fame, said, "Christianity has crossed over to a philosophy of gentle morals."  About the same time, Gandhi said, "I would have been a Christian if I had I not known so many Christians."  Real men, any type background, recognize hypocrisy and admire gravitas-strength of real men.  We honor real men on the battlefield... not the new breed-brood of pseudo hybrid of gay warriors.  

            We live in a world of street smart males, their own language punctuated with curse words, their own methods of grooming and dress, highlighted by tattoos and trousers showing their buttocks.  The prisoner's garb-appearance (trousers lowered to show their interest in anal sex) has become the Satanic emblem of maleness.  Perhaps this is the reason so many males have come "out of the closet" pursuing the attention of other males.  Perhaps this is the reason in 2008 there were more divorces and marriages in the United States.  What woman of any character at all would be attracted to such a male?  Black, accomplished-educated women (women who have pursued an education, who still have an appreciation of morals and values) have told me there are so few black men with whom they can associate that they must look toward white-Asian-Latino races for companionship and possible marriage.  They want nothing to do with black men who have such opinion of themselves.  Perhaps this is the reason 72% of our prison populations is made up of black men, that 52% of all black babies are aborted (black population in America is 13%).  There was a time, in America, where the black male was the foundation of the black family, the black community, the black church.  This has changed.  Visiting black churches, as a speaker, I found the black men have taken a back seat... the black churches are now controlled by black women.  

            The slide toward sociological distress in the black community and in the poor white areas started with F.D.R.  My grandfather was the last landowner in our community to sign the papers hereby farmers gave control of their land over to the Agricultural Stabilization Corporation (ASC), a system of agriculture control still very much in practice.  In this government control, all acreage is controlled by government.  My grandfather said, and I remember it as if it was yesterday, "We have turned our land for which we have worked so hard over to the control of the government and future generations will starve because of this control."  Everything is heading in that direction.  Now, the small farmer has disappeared.  You can not sell anything from the farm (meat, vegetables, raw milk, butter, eggs, etc.) without government inspections.  Farmers, who were the back bone of this nation, (in the 1900s 90% of the population lived on farms) just went along to get along, believing promises of politicians.  Early farmers crossing the planes on covered wagons pulled by oxen, had three absolutes in their possession, their gun, their bible, their copy of Blackstone's law.  Because of the dust bowl in mid-America most finally settled in the farming areas of California and California provides most of the food for the country.  We see now how government controls of everything, including water, has destroyed this productive land.  

            Perhaps the greatest demise of real men has happened in law enforcement.  Here were men on whom we depended for protection.  Now, in various costumes, dark glasses, racing expensive racing cars, law enforcement has become an embarrassment to the community they are supposed to serve.  Several times in my life, this blind veteran, who must depend on others for survival, has encountered criminal activity.  To whom should I go-call-depend?  You can be sure that law enforcement will do nothing except protect the criminal... making sure the criminal has all of his rights.

            Every republic that has fallen, every city-state, every democracy, started with a complete downfall of committed spiritual activity.  Look at the average church, how few you have at prayer services.  The 20th century made a beggar of God.  The church taught the incredible lie that God needs us, our money.  For God to be God, He does not need anything.  We need God and we had just enough spirituality left to play church... a country club with a steeple.  The consistent inconsistency of the downfall of every civilization, the downfall of all morality, downfall of marriage and the home, euthanasia of the old and young.  In the fall of the Roman empire, the newborn were taken to the streets to be trampled by horses.

            The most popular comic books of young boys involve action figures... Superman, Iron Man, Spider or Batman.  Young boys want to emulate tough-hard-dedicated men.  Why not real men with real flesh and blood in your own community?  Why not have real men at your church house, real men at the school house (Coaches are always the most popular men teachers at any school.  They have rules.  They require obedience not only in action but in dress and language.  There was a time when every gym in America displayed these words - 'Sportsmanship before victory.')  There was a time when we had real men at the court house, did not seek a lawyer or judge who could be purchased.  There was a time at your house as at my home, when you did not sit in daddy's chair, when you listened when daddy was talking, when a family would consistently GRIEVE as they followed daddy's casket to his grave... burying a real man.