Losing the Cloud

In the comic strip, Lil Abner, by Al Capp, one character, Joe Btfsplk, always walked around with a rain cloud over his head. He was jinxed and the jinx extended to everyone with whom he came in contact. In the Charles Schulz cartoon, Peanuts, a character by the name of Pig Pen walked around with a dust cloud over his head.

In my lifetime, I have often thought, due to my trials and tribulations, perhaps I was jinxed in some way; I have known others who felt the same way. Thank God, I learned long ago to become detached from my misfortunes in knowing that God is boss and all I have to do is trust Him. (Romans 8:28) The apostle Peter teaches us that trials and tribulations are more important than gold. (1 Peter 1:7) We know we are His when we endure the trials and tribulations of this life.

I was asked several times to speak at a large Quaker church. The pastor shared with me several times in visiting with me that he had learned to “rest in the Lord” to find time for consultation with the Creator of the Universe. He told me he went down into a wooded area of a member's large farm and landholdings, to a creek bed, where he was isolated from the noise, hurry and crowds of the world. These are the chief weapons of the Devil in keeping us from communing with God: noises, crowds and hurry. The problem in most of our lives is that we are over-committed and under-connected...we might as well face the fact....the pace of most lives is a “killer of the soul”.

Unexpected, this relatively young, Quaker preacher died. I was asked to participate at his funeral – a large gathering of grieving family and friends. Much to my surprise, he had made arrangements to be buried at his favorite reunion God-spot – the place where he so enjoyed his communion with God. The funeral director told me later that he had never had such a mess on his hands trying to carry a casket through bushes; with family and friends getting lost in the swamp. His body was taken out of the casket and put directly into the earth, as he had directed. (He was not a Muslim, but this is a Muslim practice, even King Hussein of Jordan was buried in this manner – shown on television.) To each his own, but I felt his family deserved a better committal.

I have nothing but love for the Quaker church. One of the oldest Quaker churches in this state was in the community in which I was reared – the one attended by the family of Governor Charles Brantley Aycock. My folks were in church somewhere every Sunday and we often visited this church where we knew everyone, even though we were Baptists. The most remarkable memory of the Quaker service is their quiet time, and to this day, even though it has been seventy years, I can still hear the pendulum of the large wall-clock ticking on the wall, as those Quakers communed in the Spirit of God until the Spirit moved several of them to get up and testify. This was faith and grace, love for God in purity.

These folks, like my folks, knew about Sabbath rest – worship in spirit and truth. They would have come near jumping off a building than go to a shopping center or athletic event on Sunday. The Lord's day was a holy day, not a holiday. Our fore-mothers cooked food on Saturday so there was as little work as necessary on Sunday. Of course we knew that the farm animals must be fed and watered, the cow must be milked, but thank God, there was a time in this country when God's people knew how to honor God on His day.

Most people today are “numb” to relationships. Perhaps this is the reason that 50% of all marriages end in divorce – the reason most children have little respect for the religion of their parents – 50% of all girls have sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) – 37% of all children are born to single mothers – 95% of the prison population are young men and one third of all children, world-wide, go to bed hungry. The American home, and indeed the homes around the world, have just become “service stations” --- a place for changing clothes and grabbing a bite to eat.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, made the statement last week that “we have an epidemic of corruption in the world” – that each country has “become fragmented by corruption” (particularly the countries of Africa). Globally, and particularly in this country, it has become a natural thing for people to steal from their own people. There seems to be no hesitation about stealing in stores, stealing on the job, or looting after disasters, and the atheist points fingers at the Christians. What would our nation and our world be like if there were no Christian principles which do, in many ways, limit such satanic acts? The hypocrisy of Christians is just easy to identify – no one expects better from the non-Christian.

The infidel points to the prophet Jonah as a fallacy in the Christian faith – they laugh at the big fish which God prepared – they laugh that a man could survive three days in the belly of a fish or that a prophet, after being sufficiently indoctrinated by God, would go from the Sea of Galilee many miles inland to the city of Nineveh (familiar to most of you in today's Iraq as Mosul), where a complete revival took place. (A city of 120,000 with no pre-revival activity or ministerial group, just one reluctant prophet with a message.) But, Jesus believed the story. Jesus referred to the story and I will take the Word of Jesus for God's method of removing Jonah's cloud.

Learn to use your time wisely. You, like everyone else has 86,400 seconds in your day. John and Charles Wesley's (founders of the Methodist church) mother had 19 children and she had time for each of them. Pray the prayer found in Colossians 1:9-20 each day and you will have a bountiful life – it will chase your clouds away!

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness; Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light... (Colossians 1:9-20)

Crown and Coronation

This week's front page headline of Newsweek.com is titled "The Case for Killing Granny," with a sub-header promising an explanation as to "Why curbing excessive end-of-life care is good for America."

Hitler, in the early days of his “Obama-care” rounded up two hundred seventy-five thousand old people, prostitutes, vagrants, homosexuals, gypsies, crippled, blind, and other disabled he did not think worthy of living, and using valuable money for extermination before he began to exterminate six million Jews. He so despised people who were not young and energetic. When he began his book burning in the libraries, the first book on his list was that of Helen Keller's autobiography – he so despised blind people.

Have we actually reached that place in this country? When in Kenya, Obama's birthplace, I found that it was the common practice to dispose of the old and disabled citizens by leaving them in the bush for wild animal disposal. In the northwest provinces of Canada and around the North Pole, I found it was the practice of the Eskimos to just put their old and infirmed citizens on iceflos and just let them drift out to sea for disposal by wild animals there. In India, crossing that continent by train, I was constantly amazed to find old people in blankets being heisted on top of a train by relatives so they could be transported to the sacred Ganges River for burning on the funeral pyres there. In a boat, out in the Ganges, where thousands were doing their Hindu religious rituals, I could not help but think of the old people who were thrown on the burning fires before they were dead. You expect heathens to behave in this manner, but in this Christian, civilized country, where life should be important, where our old people, regardless of condition, were at one time young people who worked hard to give you - in talent, time and treasure - what you are inheriting today. Don't you think they deserve better? Remember, if you keep living, you will reach old age too!

There are certain non-negotiables that a Christian society cannot tolerate or even consider:

1. abortion

2. euthanasia

3. homosexual or same sex marriage

4. pornography

5. stem cell exploitation

6. slavery of children

While it is true that most Medicare funds, most insurance health care expenses are used in the last years of our geriatric citizen's lives - either in taxes or in insurance - they have paid for their care. I can think of nothing more disgraceful or despicable than senior citizens spending their sunset hours worrying about their care, knowing that there are those that resent the dollars being spent on them.

The most innocent of life, the unborn, (1.3 million killed each year) are not aware of the earthly lovers of their soul – only their Heavenly Father who loves their soul. But the elderly, those who have planted the flowers that the rest of us have picked, are aware of what they have given to this thankless society.

The German people were first against the euthanasia of the disabled and elderly but, when they learned how much money they were saving, they went along with this Holocaust. They will forever suffer the pangs of God's judgment for their heathenism. Can you even imagine, that as the trains carried the Jewish people of Germany to the death chambers, the German hierarchy actually said, “they were doing it for their country.”

When the Christian is saved by faith through the marvelous grace of God, he is as saved as he will ever be; he is crowned with the glory of everlasting life. The Christian's coronation comes, when through the Holy Spirit of Christ in his life, he is a creation of God – living every minute of every day thirsty for God's Word, God's discipleship and God's redemption. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

We have the great blessing of God which completely monopolizes our lives. God is love and there is no love like the love of God. (540 times, 'love' is used in God's word.) One can give without loving but one cannot love without giving. The greatest gift of the Christian is to love one another and particularly to love those who are in need. I can think of no greater need than the need of the unborn for love and the need of the elderly and infirmed for love. One who loves does not murder. Those of you who voted for the culture of death, which now surrounds our country with a parameter of deceit, should seek the forgiveness of God and - with fasting and prayer - ask for His forgiveness for the sake of our country.

One of the world's great preacher was Dr. Vance Havner, author of 38 books, reared in North Carolina, graduate of Moody Bible Institute, one of the country's best known conference speakers. Like the great preacher Charles Hayden Spurgeon, crippled feet which never slowed him down. He said, “we often talk much further than we walk.” I heard him speak in many places, and it was always the same, an inspiration.

Battlefield Commissions

In the mindless fluff promoted by today's state-controlled news sources, the importance of the basics of decorum, discipline and good behavior is often overlooked. We see a tennis star using foul language and throwing a fit in the worst example of poor sportsmanship (Williams), or an entertainer (West) jerking the microphone out of the hand of another entertainer, or a congressman (Wilson) before the television audience of the entire world, in perhaps the seat of power of the entire world, (even though he was lying and even though most of the population detest him), calling this world leader a liar, or seeing a pastor with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, or the daily diet of erroneous news broadcasts, such as the recent demonstrations in Washington D.C. where millions were interpreted by liberal, state-controlled news media, as several thousand, we are constantly exposed of the ignominious indignities of the human mind.

On the battlefield, in WWII, in the heat of battle, when most of the officers in a particular activity were killed, it was the commander's responsibility to give battlefield commissions to top-notch NCOs worthy of becoming officers. I personally knew many of these officers who had received battlefield commissions in WWII, and during the Korean and Vietnam Conflict. The commanding officers did not select just any top Sargent for this command responsibility, but one with integrity and the patriotism and honor of God and country. The most important word in the vocabulary of a patriot or God-fearing warrior is courage. I believe that ninety-five percent of our faith is just raw courage and it takes ninety-five percent of our patriotic courage in time of war. The commanding general does not pick someone undisciplined, not dependable, unreliable, but a real soldier – tried and true to his mission and the cause for which he goes to battle. Anne Frank, in her book said, “He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!”

The time has come in this great Democratic Republic for some battlefield commissions. Not since the Revolution, has so much depended on so few. From the ranks of patriotic citizens we must promote leaders who will replace those on the local, state and federal level who have proven to be so miserably inadequate.

In history, in Old Testament sovereignty, there were evil kings and good kings. In the sovereignty of God, just as He is in control of everything on the Earth which He created, He will allow disruptive and degrading events in order to bring people to the realization of what happens when evil persists and good men do nothing. When we refuse to learn, He has a way of teaching us.

From the time of the Tower of Babel, men have refused to communicate. Hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing Americans have refused to put an end to the “fill-in-the-blank” largess of their money going to despicable programs such as artwork of our blessed Lord's cross in a container of urine. In the culture of death, (and how could anyone get anymore heathen than abortion and euthanasia, the killing of the most innocent of life) the present president now states that there is no “reproductive services” in his health care legislation, but before Planned Parenthood, in 2007, (eugenics and promotion of the depopulation of the Earth) he stated that abortion would be included in his health care plans.

Try sifting out the truth from your news broadcast. Most people still have a love for the truth, even though the truth often hurts. People recognize the truth when they hear it, unless they absolutely do not have a conscience (and I'm convinced many politicians do not). People want the truth whether at the church house, the court house or the White House. The truth is the truth whether anyone believes it or not.

The essentials for the battlefield are ability and sovereignty. Most people do not understand sovereignty. The essence of sovereignty is the knowledge that God is on OUR side. The conservative knows that the truth will keep us free.

It is time for us to get serious about our country. In order for their children to have an education, which includes love of country and love of God, (regardless of denomination) many mothers are forced to home school their children. According to a survey released this week, only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson, president of the United States said, “a nation cannot expect to be ignorant and free.”

People do what they do because they believe what they believe. We believe you should know the truth and the truth will keep you free. (John 8:32)

Majoring in Minor Things

#329

Majoring in Minor Things

Jerusalem is known as the religious capital of the world. New York City is known as the financial capital of the world. Los Angeles, California is known as the pornography capital of the world. Paris, France is known as the gourmet capital of the world. Bangkok Thailand is known as the sex capital of the world. The gateway of Asia is Bangkok where probably more tourists go through than any other Asian city. You are first overwhelmed by the traffic jams, air pollution and the fact that someone is trying to sell something to you constantly. Every building, every person is a commercial enterprise. I was totally aghast my first time there by the the open exploitation of every sexual activity Satan could concoct. So many European men and American men go there just for sexual activity that if you are male, it is assumed you are there for that purpose. Everywhere you look, you see Buddhist temples. Because the city is located, more or less, in a river delta, there is the famous Floating Market Gardens where foods are bought and sold from boats with the accompanying mold and smell. The water in these areas, although filthy is a swimming activity for the children. In the security of a boat, you do not realize the proliferation of disease to which these natives are probably immune.

The saddest part of life in this metropolis is the selling of sex. It is hard to believe that parents sell their children into prostitution to be active in the Patpong district or even into slavery exported to other parts of the world. My guide, knowing some of the promoters of the sex trade, and me being totally illiterate to this type of activity anywhere, took me to a club in the Patpong district, where the proprietors of the club, seeing a young wealthy American come in, thought I was interested in buying a sex slave. Before I knew it, one fast talking entrepreneur went to talking about prices for different ages. I said, “What in the world are you talking about? Do you think I would actually buy another human being? I'm just here to see and visit your country.” My amused and astounded guide carefully guided me away from this den of iniquity. But from first hand experience, I know that such goes on and was filled in, in detail by the guide. He told me that girls are sold to foreigners for a certain amount of money. Corrupt government officials and Buddhist priests expedite the international transactions.

Sex slavery goes on every day all over the world. No 12 year old girl chooses to be a sex slave. The CIA estimates that 50,000 slaves are trafficked into or transited through the US annually. In the US, as many as 2.8 million children live on the streets, a third of whom are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. 12 to 14 is the average age of entry into pornography and prostitution in the US. In 1850 the average slave cost $40,000 in today’s money. Presently a slave costs an average of $90. (http://www.gchope.org/human-slavery-statistics.html )

Just before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made a trip down the Mississippi River with Thomas Hanks. In New Orleans, he went to a slave market, where he saw human beings being sold. Like a horse, he saw buyers looking at their teeth, examining the breasts and genitals of women, stripping the men for muscle build, and the selling of children from their parents. We thought with the Emancipation Proclamation, such was over in this country. But there is probably more slavery going on now, than before the Civil War. Human slavery is a global public health issue. This month in Philadelphia, two women were found beaten, drugged and bound as apparent sex slaves.

Are you concerned about these things in your community and in your church? I talked with an official of the Southern Baptist Convention of Nashville, TN yesterday by phone. We cannot understand why children are not allowed to be children. Children become emotional pawns of Satan and his minions and yet we expect them to act like intelligent adults. Most church goers, sitting on church pews are more interested in themselves and their surroundings than they are of the worship of almighty God, who alone, can resolve many of these horrendous problems.

Many pastors and particularly television exploiters (Katherine Coolman, Benny Hen, Oral Roberts) are much more interested in show business than God's business. A devout Christian, a university student, I ushered in a great church in Memphis. Many of the attendees, from other states, were more interested in the pastor than they were in worship. The Holy Spirit gives us what we need when we need it. The shame, just as in the case of the slavery of young girls and boys from Asia, assisted by government and church leaders, is the incredible amount of tax dollars being wasted by US government. For instance, $33 billion sent to Afghanistan for which there is no accounting. Accountants learned years ago that $40 billion would eliminate all of the world's poverty, would put clean water in every African village, would eliminate hunger across the world.

Just as government and religious leaders are unconcerned about the slavery of children, we can say the same thing about law enforcement. I have been told, on good authority, that when young girls are found in houses of prostitution, even in this city, they become protected by law enforcement so that they can be used for their pleasure. Law enforcement has become an abomination. They love being detested by the public because it makes their job much easier. Most are just bullies who could not find a job doing anything else. If the law were interested in stopping prostitution, they would arrest the buyer. If the law were interested in stopping illegal drug activities, they would arrest the buyers. The fact of the matter is, because of their own personal interest and the obtaining of funds from the sale of vehicles and houses where drugs are found, crime proliferates. Crime will not decrease until the morality of law enforcement increases. We have as much to fear from the law enforcement as we do from the criminals. It hurts a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran to say this, but every time I have any contact with law enforcement, I think that much less of them. GOD HELP YOU IF YOU NEED HELP.

How much intrusion in your life will you permit? Government already controls by license or permit, everything you do. In the shadows we can already see approaching, government control of your home and everything in it. With this new health care legislation, the last vestige of security and privacy to the individual citizen, you will see government inspections of your medicine cabinets and your refrigerator. Don't let anyone tell you that abortion funding is not in this new legislature. Don't let anyone tell you that inadequate care for the elderly is not in this legislature. Don't let anyone tell you that in spite of our present flaws socialized health care will make anything any better.

The state controlled news media and news print, the liberal ne'er do wells, such as Jimmy Carter, the Clintons, Charles Rangle, Henry Paulson, etc. would have you believe that we are in a renaissance of progress. It is just the opposite. In majoring on minorities, we have overlooked God's program and God's people.

Shelf Life

All of my life I have been an antiquarian book collector. In recent years, mostly because of online selling, I have become an antiquarian book seller, selling the many thousands of first edition books I have collected over my life. Along with the photograph in the description of the book, we usually note shelf wear; because, like all antiques, it does not matter how long you have had an item and how well you describe it as being old, etc. Everyone expects an antique to have the appearance of just coming out of Wal-Mart.

Mr. Obama will never suffer from shelf wear. On a national radio talk show, right after he was inaugurated, when everyone was lamenting about what these liberals had done to our country, I said, “Like the television program, Mission Impossible, he will self destruct.”

The honeymoon is over; and he is self-destructing more rapidly than anyone thought possible. He has failed with his bailouts of the automobile industry, banks, insurance and even old clunker, and he has failed with his efforts to change the American health care system. This narcissistic, ambulance chasing, Harvard schister lawyer is totally lost amid the drama and drums of Washington politics. He has already found that his Rules for Radicals which kept him in good standing in the mafioso political squalor of Chicago-land is not working in the slime pits of Wall Street and sorcery of the Potomac schism. Like the retarded George W. he needs a real emergency to establish himself as a leader. He should not have run from the Pentagon when the gun shots started on September 11^th from the uninformed Coast Guard Ships. Like the messiah that he thinks he is, he could have lifted up his cigarette like Moses lifted up his rod in the wilderness, and stopped the firing, becoming a hero to the onlooking liberals in the dog patch of the Pentagon. Legitimate or illegitimate, he and his beleaguered wife and her voodoo mother, Mrs. Robinson, are ensconced in the White House. He has reportedly spent between $1.6 and $2 million in legal fees to keep legal proceedings coming before judges about his birth certificate. His friends on Wall Street, Mr. Paulson, et al, are squirreling away all the bailout money and bonuses they can possibly pocket before heading for the nation's capital where the Wall Streeters along with the “K” Streeters will join forces with the other corrupters to solve the country's tax problems, because the slaves will not have taxes to pay.

Even the blind and ignorant will learn you cannot get “blood out of a turnip”.

The same news people who cannot count money or debt could not count millions in Washington last weekend. It started out on the liberal, state-controlled networks that there were tens of thousands in Washington; but when London sources and even Capital Police stated that there were at least 2 million, their eyes and computers came alive.

Those involved in the Boston Tea Party were not there because of the insignificant tea tax charge. But, starting in 1628, King George had directed that the colonists were not to make contracts, that they were to have no say in their business activities. It took many decades; but finally our forefathers decided that enough was enough. FREE MEN could make contracts. FREE MEN could determine their own destiny, And these FREE MEN exercised the great God given-gift of free will (John 8:32) and started the great American Revolution which lead to the Constitution of our nation.

The Constitution was written by men who had experienced the Constitution. The Constitution is not a “living” document anymore than God's precious Word is a “living” Bible.

Obama is a self proclaimed socialist. He has described himself as a socialist in his books. Norman Thomas, who ran 6 times as a Socialist candidate for president said, “Americans will never accept socialism all at once, but little by little they will accept everything that socialism offers.

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Germany had been the site of an increasing number of measures taken in the name of "racial purity" since the Nazis assumed power in 1933, including forced sterilization of those with physical and/or mental handicaps, and the murder of infants with similar handicaps (in both cases, the primary targets were not Jews, but so called "Aryans," or non-Jewish Germans). Now in 1939, under the cover of war, the program was to be expanded to include murdering handicapped adults. Since Hitler would issue no law legalizing such forced "euthanasia," and since physicians would hesitate or refuse to take part in the killing unless they had written protection from later prosecution, Hitler was persuaded to sign this document on his PERSONAL STATIONERY instructing his assistants Philipp Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt to initiate the program.

Pat Dollard, a radio talk show host, author of 15 books in 6 languages has written an article about the parallelism in the rise of Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama.

The parallels between Obama's and Hitler's rise to power should make people worry:

- self-promoting books used as Bibles for converts to the Obama faith

- highly choreographed mass rallies

- intimidation of opponents in the press by thugs and crooked lawyers

- local law enforcement abusing their power to suppress dissent from Obama's message. In one case, a group naming itself "Barack Obama's Truth Squad,"

- divisive rhetoric and demonization of opponents

- cover-up of independent source information about the candidate's past

- covert support of rich industrialists (hoping for sway with a totalitarian "boss"?) $430 MILLION, much of it collected against election laws!

- and worst of all, systematic election fraud and other criminal acts committed by Democratic party supporter ACORN, another group with which Obama has had ties early in his political career, and which has endorsed him directly.

ACORN fills much the same role for the Obama campaign as the Sturmabteilung, or "SA" did for Hitler - they supply shock troops at demonstrations, they commit voter fraud on contract to the Democrats, and in general are the vanguard of Obama's army of thugs willing to do his dirty tricks for him (the unions have day jobs, so they don't have the scope that ACORN "volunteers" do).

The German people were against Hitler's policies involving the extermination of the disabled; but when they learned of the money they were saving in not keeping alive old people, (In this country, one half of all Medicare funds are spent on those 85 years or older and the population of 85 is the fastest growing population in the country.) they were content to allow the extermination of old people, prostitutes, vagrants, gypsies, homosexuals and others whom they considered least desirable and who were taking up too much of the wealth of the country. ARE WE HEADING IN THE SAME DIRECTION? Planned parenthood and other eugenics promoters are advocating the depopulation of the earth to 2 billion. This means the elimination of 5 billion people by war or disease or some method known only to Satan and his minions. The world is in a great dilemma as far as debt. It is impossible for this country to pay it's debt, an estimated $75 trillion when you consider Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Paper assets are worth nothing at all, whether fiat dollars, titles to your car or your deed to your house. One man's debt is another man's asset. The assets of debt are worthless. Private debt has reached the place that many countries do not accept American credit cards anymore. The people who change money on the streets of Asia, just laugh at American dollars. Those of you who wanted change, need to change your eye glasses from rose-colored to the more realistic clear glass.

Sine Die 79

Allow me to share some birthday memories with you. I was born on September 17^th, 1930. On this day, sine die 79, I look back on a long and exciting life.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

The world has totally changed in my lifetime; but there are some things that never change. Don't you pity those who have no memories? Thank God I remember the first day of summer, when my mother told me I could go barefoot and I could feel the “good earth” on my feet and in between my toes. I remember the two times that I asked the funeral director to put my hand on the dead hands of my parents in their caskets so I could remember what those hands had done for me. Some years after I had sold my practice in Goldsboro, I returned to the office to check on something (I had sold my practice to another doctor and was living at my beach home).

My driver let me out of the car in the parking lot and as I was walking across the parking lot, a very elderly patient of mine spotted me coming across the lot towards the office. She got up out of the reception room and met me in the parking lot. She said, “Dr. Morris, I want you to take care of me today.” Later, I called one of my professors at Chapel Hill; and I said to him, “Today I got paid for all the hard work and studying I did in school over all those years. Today I got paid for what I gave my country in the military.” When this black woman took my hand, I could feel the confidence she had in me that she had shown over and over as a patient. She knew she would get good care from those in the office still there. But, the touch coming from the translation of another human being is beyond all explanation.

My wonderful mother never forgot my taste for blackberries. I have traveled through every continent of the globe and have eaten in many of the world's great cafes. I have never found a food as delicious as blackberry jam. Always, without exception, my mother knew her children's favorite food. When we came home from college or for any other reason, it was always on the table. She always cut the corn off the cob and cooked it like that. Nothing on a hard working day was as good as fresh corn on a freshly made biscuit, along with freshly sliced tomatoes in apple cider vinegar. I thought I knew Chinese food until I went to China. Authentic Chinese food has a taste and tang which you will never forget.

Thank God I had sight as a young person. Some of my friends, blind from birth, have often asked me about things which they can only imagine. Their families never took the time to let them feel or describe things to them. One blind friend came to my house (He had never seen since his eyes were destroyed in an incubator at Duke University Hospital) and in my den, I was describing the various animal skins I have on the walls. His father, a college professor, jumped up and took him over to the skins for him to feel of them. Then, I understood why this young man, blind from birth was able to graduate with advanced degrees from two universities. He had such outstanding parents. I am thankful I saw our mother cat moving her kittens in her mouth from one location to another. I am thankful I saw my own mother take a setting hen off the nest with her young chicks. Children reared on a farm have an understanding of life and how precious it is. I am so thankful that God gave me the privilege of seeing the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, the Glaciers of the North and South Pole, before I was totally blind.

My whole world now involves hearing, I have radios all over my house. But, the greatest music I hear is that of my grandson singing in the church where his father is pastor, and hearing my only son (who has earned two doctorates) preach. I'm thankful that as a child, I could hear the train whistles at the nearby town and realize that there were places to travel in this world and that I could see the pyramids on the Nile or the Pyramids in South America, if I studied and kept myself alert to the world. I have never traveled anywhere in the world that was not exactly what I expected because I had read that much about the world and it's geography. I went to the Radio City Music Hall when it was still great. I attended plays where such actors as Richard Burton, Yule Brenner, Mickey Rooney, and Claudette Colbert starred.

I'm thankful that God gave me the ambition and knowledge to work hard, study hard and then be able to contribute to the lives of people in hospitals that have a very distinct smell. I am thankful that I knew young girls who wore perfume and had femininity when I was young, not like today's liberated woman, who smells of cigarettes and wants to act like a man. I'm thankful that I experienced the smell of ham cooking in an iron frying pan on my mother's “Home Comfort” wood stove, when coming in from hard work on a cold day. I will never forget the smell of the Great Bizarre in Istanbul, Turkey where fragrance coming from over-spiced cooking blended with the Turkish tobacco from the pipes of friendly hawkers and tinklers selling their wares.

My passion for the security and safety of fellow human beings regardless of age, in the womb or in the nursing home, comes from the fact that life is a gift from God. The unbelievers will always point out the warts of believers. But they never recognize the hypocrisy of their fellow unbelievers. We do what we do, because we believe what we believe. On this 79^th birthday of my existence, I'm thankful for the instillation of my belief which has led me to do what I have done, thankful for my forgiveness from God and my fellow man, and at this time, just seek to be more forgiving and more thankful for the everlasting arms that have carried me this far.

Victory in Jesus (Chorus)

O victory in Jesus,
My Savior, forever.
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him,
He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood.

Citizen Code of Conduct

The Uniform Military Code of Conduct is as follows, without the explanatory information:

Article I

I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

Article II

I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.

Article III

If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

Article IV

If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.

Article V

When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

Article VI

I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

For those of us who have had the honor of wearing the uniform of our country, this code was our lifeline to God, family and country and provided the esprit de corps binding each warrior to his fellow warriors, each son and daughter of America to the promises provided by our Constitution and bill of rights. Our flag, our pledge of allegiance, our Constitution, our love, one for another, our memories of “home” provided the eternal vigilance, under God for our life and death struggles, our ambition to live with disability.

During WWII, when the population of this country was much less than it is today, and we were fighting wars on two fronts, with the effort involved in forces for the front lines, ship building, weapons manufacturing and all the other activities involved in a total war effort, one of the more successful civilian projects was that of the Civilian Conservation Corp. This involved, in a time of unemployment, rural and urban poverty, the enlisting of young men ages 18 – 25 (2.5 million men and 8,000 women) in 1500 camps across the nation for training and the building of national structures in a program of improving their health and education. Each received $30 a month in pay, $25 of which was required to be sent back to their family. The most revealing statistics of this program were the totally inadequate education and health care of young people.

Most had health problems which would not permit them into the regular military service. Many showed the inadequacies of the government schools. It was the first time these young people had ever been away from home, away from the shelter of their community. They were now exposed to adequate diets and hygiene. They saw the need for education and were thrown into the cauldron of other nationalities and for the first time in their life exercising routine and discipline. After their CCC experience many went on to further military experience, where they became outstanding leaders even in the officer ranks. They just needed the opportunity. Like those returning from the war and military conflict, these young people returning from the CCC camps, had a new outlook on life and were ready for remedial education and altogether became the backbone of our “greatest generation”.

One would think that after over 200 years of the American experience with more of our national treasury spent on education than anything else, we would have solved the problems of public education. More so than ever before, we see parents placing their much loved children in private schools. The greatest education experiment in America is the millions now being schooled at home. In NC 80,000 children are being home schooled. These parents, who choose to educate their children at home, are paying just as much tax on their property as those whose children are in the public school house who ride to school by public transportation but have the security of knowing their children are safe. There is a great need for the training of children in authentic manhood and womanhood. It is not just reading, writing and mathematics even though most are sorely lacking in these areas, but the simplest of matters of home life and living, such as washing clothes, making a bed, rudimentary cleaning.

Some of the saddest experiences of my life have been the employment of college students from this city on a part time basis. Since it was necessary for me to work my way through college, I have tried to employ college students. It is always, without exception, a sad experience. The last female, needing desperately to work, (according to what she told my assistant who interviewed her, was late to work her very first day and had to ask another assistant about using the washing machine, was unable to make the bed. Even though cautioned many times about moving things in a blind man's house, she just created absolute chaos. She was unable to do the simplest things. I tried dictating to her. This college student could neither spell or punctuate. I said, “Have you had a course in English?” She said, “Yes. I made an A.” If it were just this student at a community college, I could possibly understand. But, I find the same problems with university students.

We need to get back to the basics of educational principles needed in every life.

One: Emergency Preparedness

I firmly believe every person should know the basics of emergency health care, emergency care such as you would find in emergency situations, knowing how to keep someone alive, pressure points and circulation, keeping airways clear, restoring breathing, and such matters as skin, fractures, germ control. In Mali, the population is 55 million; and there are less than 400 doctors. In their socialized system, they have clinics but no health care personnel in the clinics. As was the case with our early ancestors who forged westward, you learn through common sense, to care for yourself and others. It is those first 10 minutes before the ambulance arrives that are most important for life and death. A good Red Cross, EMS basics should be taught to every school student.

Two: Economics

Every child should be taught the value of a dollar. In a time of prosperity and certainly in a time of recession, every school child should learn the importance of conservatism. I hear of young people who throw their lunch, paid for with tax dollars, into the garbage. I blame the teachers as well as the parents for not emphasizing the importance of eating healthy food. I blame the schools, as well as the parents for allowing students to buy soft drinks, the worst possible fluid a person can put in the human body and the very thing that has caused this country to have an epidemic of diabetes. I blame society, as well as parents, for allowing students to have credit cards and to never be satisfied with anything but to constantly shop. In this Kleenex “throw away” world in which we have more of everything than we need, restraint and reasonable buying practices should be instilled in every school child.

Three: Emotion

Mark Twain said, “politeness cost so little.” Self control and clear thinking before acting is essential not only in staying out of prison, but having a happy life. It is old as time, but the Golden Rule still works. Treat others the way you wish to be treated. In business and in life, treat others the way you wish to be treated and charge what you would be willing to pay. You only go around one time. Have as few regrets as possible.

All Day Sucker

Those my age, in a much saner and simpler world, will remember candy on a stick, popularly known as a sucker. The large ones were called an all day sucker, because a resourceful child could make the lollipop last all day long, by just taking a lick occasionally. No one knows exactly how the word sucker became attached to the person or personality not in control. The famed carnival entrepreneur, Phineas Taylor Barnum, who got the circus business going in this country, around 1872, billed his menagerie of freaks as “The Greatest Show on Earth.” He was the first millionaire show business personality. His circus is now called the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He is widely but erroneously credited with coining the phrase, “There's a sucker born every minute” probably because the circus has proven, over the years, to be a place where people are very careless in the spending of their money.

Perhaps the greatest circus was Julius Caesar returning from an expedition to Africa with crudely built cages containing wild animals. When he crossed the Hellespont and proceeded up the Mediterranean coast to Rome, thousands lined the roadways to see animals completely unfamiliar to them. A great giraffe was walked all the way from Rome to Paris, with thousands lining the roadway to see this phenomena of God's creation.

Since I lost my eye sight so early in life, I never went to a circus in America; but in the USSR a lady asked me to accompany her to the famed Russian circus. Since she was afraid to travel on the subway alone, I went with her. I could not see what was going on at that great circus. But, it was the only time in any Communist country (China, Mongolia, etc.) that I heard the laughter of people. The iconic Colosseum in Rome, completed in 80 AD, built to be earthquake proof, had the largest seating capacity of any building in the Roman Empire, with up to 60,000, still stands today as an epilogue of the circus festivities of that ancient empire. It's blood-dripped history was associated with the early Christian church and the martyr of early believers who in a circus atmosphere, were torn apart by animals in it's elliptical structure.

Perhaps the Romans, who attended these events smacked on suckers; but the intent of the Roman rulers was, as in the case of Barnum, to rid the public of their concerns and put a happy face on the world.

As was the case with the Romans, before the fall of the empire, (Gibbons, Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire), the chief mission of a degraded government is to keep the enslaved just happy in paying their taxes and functioning under totalitarian control. Our all day sucker has become the television set, the internet, video games (Game Boy, Nintendo, PSP), Blackberry (a combination of cell phone, computer, etc. all hand sized so that you can carry them around with you constantly). The deception and lying of the government no longer bothers most people. They are so self-absorbed and self-adored completely captivated by their own individual activities.

Their schadenfreude activities (pleasure from the misfortune of others) is reflected in their inability to become concerned about the world around them, with their horizontal activities or their vertical activities, and lack of concern about God and His mission for their life. Eighty nine percent of the elderly in nursing homes never have a visitor. Christians elected the most pro-death culture administration in the history of the world.

The whole attitude of young people today is to be more sleek and chic than anyone else. Our young people spend hours in gyms to obtain sleek bodies. It is necessary to have the most sleek automobile. From grade school it is necessary to have the sleekest clothing. Labels are more important than language. Sleek, illegal drugs, sleek restaurants and night clubs are more important in their social climb than was the country club patronage of their parents. Just last night I heard a national talk show host say, “I want no part of religion. I do not believe in that boloney.”

From the earliest years in grade schools, youngsters are torn between the concept of right and wrong. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, our first ancestors, Satan has beguiled every human being in the entire history of man. It is no different now than it was in the very beginning. The fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is so tasty and so beautiful. We cannot believe that we are forbidden to partake of it. And, we are so smart, we want to set the parameters of our lives, not God. There is always safety in being right. There is always an emotional conflict in choosing evil. Always, without exception, wrong choices will come back to haunt you.

We have an answer book. The answers there have never been wrong yet. Follow God's instructions, eat correctly, stay honest. Credit is your master not your friend. (Stay out of debt). The most valuable gift God gave you was the gift of free will. But, you should not abuse it by driving a vehicle in a crazy way, by indulging in the lust of illegal sexual activities. (Because of illegal sexual activities 50% of American girls have STD's and 47% of babies are born out of wedlock). The greatest gift to the human animal is a superior nervous system, a brain. Why abuse it with a day-long sucker of addiction (illegal drugs, pornography, etc.). Your senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste are the rarest gifts from God, superlative in every way to the senses of most animal life. Of course, the bird has far superior eyes, the dog, a far superior smell; but man has the ability to think, to reason, to store knowledge. Man knows he is going to die. Enjoy good books, good food, good entertainment, family and friends. You cannot hide anything from God. Trust Him. He is Boss. Enjoy a disciplined life of structure and routine. Learn early that you cannot change people. Once a child is trained by loving parents, only God can do the rest. Do not sink into the oblivion of the sucker, unconcerned about your eternal life.

Only a fool says there is no God. Only a fool believes he can drink and eat anything and get by with it without paying consequences now and forever. (1 Corinthians 10:31) It is only a fool who is not conservative, not just in his political belief, but in every walk of life. You save your body which is the temple of God. You save your earth and the environment around you. You save your God-given talents, time, treasury. Today is tomorrow that never came. You cannot recall one minute. To every young person and to every young group, to which I speak, I always make this one statement, “Enjoy every minute of your life; because in just a short time you will be my age. Satan will try to give you a sucker of unconcern, addiction, lawlessness, pride, and all the other sins that will corrupt your life. You only go around one time. The train is on the track. You will not get a chance to travel this track again. Get aboard, enjoy the trip.”

All Day Sucker

All Day Sucker

Those my age, in a much saner and simpler world, will remember candy on a stick, popularly known as a sucker. The large ones were called an all day sucker, because a resourceful child could make the lollipop last all day long, by just taking a lick occasionally. No one knows exactly how the word sucker became attached to the person or personality not in control. The famed carnival entrepreneur, Phineas Taylor Barnum, who got the circus business going in this country, around 1872, billed his menagerie of freaks as “The Greatest Show on Earth.” He was the first millionaire show business personality. His circus is now called the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus. He is widely but erroneously credited with coining the phrase, “There's a sucker born every minute” probably because the circus has proven, over the years, to be a place where people are very careless in the spending of their money.

Perhaps the greatest circus was Julius Caesar returning from an expedition to Africa with crudely built cages containing wild animals. When he crossed the Hellespont and proceded up the Mediterranean coast to Rome, thousands lined the roadways to see animals completely unfamiliar to them. A great giraffe was walked all the way from Rome to Paris, with thousands lining the roadway to see this phenomena of God's creation.

Since I lost my eye sight so early in life, I never went to a circus in America; but in the USSR a lady asked me to accompany her to the famed Russian circus. Since she was afraid to travel on the subway alone, I went with her. I could not see what was going on at that great circus. But, it was the only time in any Communist country (China, Mongolia, etc.) that I heard the laughter of people. The iconic Colosseum in Rome, completed in 80 AD, built to be earthquake proof, had the largest seating capacity of any building in the Roman Empire, with up to 60,000, still stands today as an epilogue of the circus festivities of that ancient empire. It's blood-dripped history was associated with the early Christian church and the martyr of early believers who in a circus atmosphere, were torn apart by animals in it's elliptical structure.

Perhaps the Romans, who attended these events smacked on suckers; but the intent of the Roman rulers was, as in the case of Barnum, to rid the public of their concerns and put a happy face on the world.

As was the case with the Romans, before the fall of the empire, (Gibbons, Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire), the chief mission of a degraded government is to keep the enslaved just happy in paying their taxes and functioning under Totalitarian control. Our all day sucker has become the television set, the internet, video games (Game Boy, Nintendo, PSP), Blackberry (a combination of cell phone, computer, etc. all hand sized so that you can carry them around with you constantly). The deception and lying of the government no longer bothers most people. They are so self-absorbed and self-adored completely captivated by their own individual activities.

Their schadenfreude activities (pleasure from the misfortune of others) is reflected in their inability to become concerned about the world around them, with their horizontal activities or their vertical activities, and lack of concern about God and His mission, for their life. Eighty nine percent of the elderly in nursing homes never have a visitor. Christians elected the most pro-death culture administration in the history of the world.

The whole attitude of young people today is to be more sleek and chic than anyone else. Our young people spend hours in gyms to obtain sleek bodies. It is necessary to have the most sleek automobile. From grade school it is necessary to have the sleekest clothing. Labels are more important than language. Sleek, illegal drugs, sleek restaurants and night clubs are more important in their social climb than was the country club patronage of their parents. Just last night I heard a national talk show host say, “I want no part of religion. I do not believe in that bolognie.”

From the earliest years in grade schools, youngsters are torn between the concept of right and wrong. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, our first ancestors, Satan has beguiled every human being in the entire history of man. It is no different now than it was in the very beginning. The fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is so tasty and so beautiful. We cannot believe that we are forbidden to partake of it. And, we are so smart, we want to set the parameters of our lives, not God. There is always safety in being right. There is always an emotional conflict in choosing evil. Always, without exception, wrong choices will come back to haunt you.

We have an answer book. The answers there have never been wrong yet. Follow God's instructions, eat correctly, stay honest. Credit is your master not your friend. (Stay out of debt). The most valuable gift God gave you was the gift of free will. But, you should not abuse it by driving a vehicle in a crazy way, by indulging in the lust of illegal sexual activities. (Because of illegal sexual activities 50 % of American girls have STD's and 37 % of babies are born out of wedlock). The greatest gift to the human animal is a superior nervous system, a brain. Why abuse it with a day-long sucker of addiction (illegal drugs, pornography, etc.). Your senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste are the rarest gifts from God, superlative in every way to the senses of most animal life. Of course, the bird has far superior eyes, the dog, a far superior smell; but man has the ability to think, to reason, to store knowledge. Man knows he is going to die. Enjoy good books, good food, good entertainment, family and friends. You cannot hide anything from God. Trust Him. He is Boss. Enjoy a disciplined life of structure and routine. Learn early that you cannot change people. Once a child is trained by loving parents, only God can do the rest. Do not sink into the oblivion of the sucker, unconcerned about your eternal life.

Only a fool says there is no God. Only a fool believes he can drink and eat anything and get by with it without paying consequences now and forever. 1 Corinthians 10:31. It is only a fool who is not conservative, not just in his political belief, but in every walk of life. You save your body which is the temple of God. You save your earth and the environment around you. You save your God-given talents, time, treasury. Today is tomorrow that never came. You cannot recall one minute. To every young person and to every young group, to which I speak, I always make this one statement, “Enjoy every minute of your life; because in just a short time you will be my age. Satan will try to give you a sucker of unconcern, addiction, lawlessness, pride, and all the other sins that will corrupt your life. You only go around one time. The train is on the track. You will not get a chance to travel this track again. Get aboard. Enjoy the trip.”

Spiritual Continuum

In the spring of 1987, I had just returned from a round the world trip and at nearby Duke University, at the spring commencement festivities, newsman, Ted Copple, had just delivered the commencement address. When I talked with friends at Duke Hospital, Copple had made an impression with his down to earth delivery speaking of the pitiful attitude Americans show in their news compliance. He said, “...You can partake of our daily banquet without drawing on any intellectual resources; without either physical or moral discipline...” He spoke of the Ten Commandments and our lackadaisical attitude towards them. He spoke of “Vannatizing” the intellectual acuity of the public, the very idea that Vanna White, known only for her ability to turn numbers on a television program would write her autobiography.

Ted Copple said,
“...We are beginning to make our mark on the American psyche. We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. "Shoot up if you must; but use a clean needle." "Enjoy sex whenever with whomever you wish; but wear a condom." No. The answer is no. Not no because it isn't cool or smart or because you might end up in jail or dying in an AIDS ward -- but no, because it's wrong. Because we have spent 5,000 years as a race of rational human being trying to drag ourselves out of the primeval slime by searching for truth and moral absolutes.”

In the 22 years since he made this speech, state run television with it's newscasts, have only worsened. Malcolm Maldridge, Brittish historian said, “Today's news is old news for new people.” Dr. Samuel Johnson said, “Your focus becomes sharper when you see the hangman's noose.” When will we realize that state-controlled news is just what Satanic forces of Communism, Totalitarianism, has sought for the past 50 years? GE, who owns NBC and it's affiliates, has their CEO as Obama advisor. Every alphabet news organization spits out the same culture of controlled jargon.

This weekend, BBC, and the Homeland Security Department reported that 2 million Americans were protesting on the streets of Washington D.C. But, the controlled media kept saying tens of thousands. Thinking Americans are beginning to see through this charade. Thinking Americans want honesty in government and they demand honesty in news reporting. Because of the dishonesty in news reporting, newspapers are failing like leaves falling off trees in autumn. The only reliable electronic news is found in the many channels of the internet or from abroad. Patriots in America may forgive many things in the American experience of justice. But they will never forgive dishonest reporting.

A few weeks after this address, I was talking with a friend of mine who had just returned from his brother's funeral. His brother, divorced from his first wife, had moved with his young 3 children to Georgia where he had remarried and had lived a normal life. His children, his family, had brought his body back to NC for burial in the family cemetery in rural Wayne County. His first wife, who had never recovered from the divorce and still carried around much baggage of frustration and bitterness, drove out to the cemetery while the commitment ceremony was going on where her own adult children were surrounded by family and family friends from the community. She stood on the highway next to the cemetery and yelled out many brutal, slanderous accusations against the man going in the grave while his grieving family and friends were there for the service. He said, “It was the most embarrassing, barbaric pathos one could every imagine.” He said, “How any person could carry around that much hatred, unforgiveness and hurt towards her own children because the husband to whom the insults were directed, had escaped her wrath.”

Hatred and unforgiveness is first an injury. Then it becomes a debt. And lastly one must make the decision to forgive and let it go. Blessings and cursings cannot come out of the same mouth any more than potable water and putrid water can come out of the same faucet. Christianity is separated from every other religion because God is love. (Love is mentioned 540 times in the scriptures.) The love of God is manifest in His only son, Jesus Christ who lived and died to show forgiveness. We can forgive when we realize how much we have been forgiven. It is difficult to forgive a government and the state-controlled news outlets of that government who are so totally dishonest in their professional responsibility. As an example the corruption has extended so far that few have heard of the 87,000 military weapons missing in Afghanistan, many of which, we know according to “Reader's Digest” have been used to kill our own young warriors. We have heard nothing of the 33 billion tax dollars unaccounted for in Afghanistan. We have heard nothing of the billions of tax dollars unaccounted for in the bailouts during the Obama largess. The hardworking, sweating, tax-paying, God-fearing, coupon-clipping American patriots deserve better from their government and certainly from the news organizations, supposedly licensed to give oversight to government operations.

For far too long, the politically correct liberals have excused everything in the name sake of progress. For far too long, many have just said, “business as usual. We go along to get along. Everything will work out.” Have you ever seen how much water will come into your building through a pinhole? We are drowning in our own unconcern, the ambiguity of just turning the blind eye. In the day of rose garden rhetoric, deception about everything, rejoice. The power of prayer can completely reverse the oligarchy of the deceit of a few. Mr. Obama and his Alinsky's Rules For Radicals, might know about Satanic deception. But, he has much to learn about the devotion of patriots. The state controlled newscasters and news editors, print and electronic, will not have the last word.

Simplicity Cascade

Down under, in Australia, one of the more interesting cities is the city of Perth, on the west coast of Australia. Much smaller when I was there than it is now. There in the summer, it was hot and windy. I remember the wide streets and the generally pleasant atmosphere, attitude and anticipation of visiting and then moving onto the South Pacific. Staying at the wonderful and famous Duxton Hotel, I had walked to a shopping area and was sitting on a bench when a middle-aged man came over and sat next to me and began to talk to me with an accent hard to understand. It turns out that he was an Aborigines and was from the outback; a Christianity convert by a missionary, and he had come to Perth in order to improve his life.

To make a long story short, we discussed our mutual Christian beliefs and he told me that he was having great difficulty finding a church in Perth where he could feel secure in his faith. I told him that even a Christian from America had great difficulty doing that, that Christianity had been polluted by the wisdom of men and that the simplicity found in Christ is estranged by the philosophies of men. He said, “I have a child's faith; I love God's Word. I love to hear and read the scripture but I have yet to find a church in Perth where the scripture is preached in its fullness and simplicity. I keep searching; I have a hunger for the teaching and the preaching of God's Word. I feel I am at a concert hall with the formality and rituals, ushers and programs.”

The questions of this new convert, a baby in Christ, I have encountered all over the world. From a new Methodist church in dark Africa where they were trying to get a roof on the building to the Baptist Association activities in eastern North Carolina, I find people searching; trying to find public housing for their faith. We are told to come together as a church, but have seemingly forgotten the importance of the mixture associating the kindergarten with the graduate school in the verisimilitude of one worship service.

I talked with him about the great cathedrals around the world; the stained glass windows, organs that resounded in religious music, the great rose window of Notre Dame, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I talked to him of the simplicity of the rural church where I was reared; a piano and gustily singing uneducated voices, as well as well-paid, well-trained choirs in great churches - but all supposedly proclaiming the grace and mercy of almighty God. I said to him, as I say to myself so often, “The simple faith of God in Christ is within me. All the other escapade and entourage is just man-made periphery.” One's faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) It is a matter of confidence that we have as individual believers. I said to him, “Thank God every day of your life that someone reached you with the matchless message and redemption of Jesus Christ. The very fact that you want to know more --- believe me you will never get enough. And you will learn that you can find worship with others, great or small, or just with God alone. God is a spirit and we find our greatest worship with Him in the closet.”

I talked with him about my mother's mother, my maternal grandmother, Lanie Underwood Pittman. She was a woman of astounding faith. As her oldest grandchild, she shared with me things she did not share with anyone else because, she knew something about me and saw something within me worth the experience. My mother had told me this but, I needed to hear it from her own lips, that early each morning, she would go to the family cemetery and there enjoyed the simplicity of visiting with my relatives, already in heaven, while the dew was still on the flowers. God gave her the spiritual experience of talking with the spirits from the grave --- my aunts who had died in the great flu epidemic of 1918, her small son who had died in that epidemic, my great grandparents. It was there she reinforced the stalwart, unflinching devotion to her Savior. She was able to continue her personal relationship with her departed loved ones, now in glory, and the Redeemer who would give her the faith not only to die with, but to live by.

From the time the serpent beguiled Eve, and our first parents were thrown out of God's garden, men have tried to complicate the simplicity of God's plan for the world and His own. The creation, as described in God's word, is just too simple for the educated mind. Its simplicity is all we need and even though there has been much science fiction, no one has been able to improve God's description. Just to think that it takes two and one half days for light traveling one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second to arrive at your eye from the nearest star, and just to think that God has the very hairs on your head numbered. Just to think that at the top and the bottom of this one planet there are four and a half million square miles of glaciers (I have visited both the north and south pole) with the trillions of snowflakes and ice crystals He designed each individually --- no two have ever been found the same! Just to think that the billions of human beings magnificently created by God (Psalm 139), no two have the same facial features, no two have the same voice, the same fingerprints, the same flecks pattern in the iris of their eye, is something that should astound even Mr. Darwin and his followers. Can you even imagine that the tears of joy and the tears of grief coming out of the same eye have a different chemical composition? Books have been written on this one subject yet there are still those in the academic halls who wish to cloud God's sovereignty about everything (even the clotting of blood which no scientific mind has ever been able to reproduce) with the doubts, the theories, the theorems of one little speck in the almost limitless universe.

Secondly, the simplicity of salvation is not complicated enough for the academic mind. We want rituals, laws, works, equations as a substitution for Divine Redemption. The twelve greatest words ever written “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is too simple for the sophisticate but God clearly tells us that the wisdom of man is just the foolishness of God. “Keep it simple stupid --- KISS” is not something new in progressive education. God made it simple for we stupid people before the very foundation of the world.

Thirdly, the simplicity of speaking to God. “GOD IS BOSS!” He only requires our trust. I am convinced that if you were to ask any human being who has lived on this earth and has now gone on to his destination, regardless of destination, what he wished he had done differently, he or she would say “to have learned to trust God completely.” God speaks to us through His eternal Word. It is the answer book to every problem, written in language that anyone can understand. One denomination, for a very long time, promoted the idea that only one with a Roman collar could explain God's inerrant Word. Even the Roman Catholic Church now promotes the idea of Bible study. In God's judgment, you will be on your own. Your counselor, priest, pastor, even your lawyer, saved or unsaved, will not be able to defend you. God is a perfect score keeper --- He will have all the evidence. Then as now, learn to seek His mercy. It is so simple....help!

Fourthly, the greatest power in all the world, the very power that raised Christ from the dead, the very power that brought Lazarus out of the grave, the power that multiplied loaves and fishes, the power of prayer. When you have denominations, you have what denominations can do. When you have churches, you have what churches can do. When you have education, you have what education can do. When you have prayer, you have what God can do. I am firmly convinced on the authority of God's Word that if there is anything on earth that we need, it is what God can do. The simplicity of just asking. The simplicity of knowing when we ask, He hears us and will respond according to His riches in glory. Christ Himself said, “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:14) Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

In my lifetime, when asked to pray at a large gathering, religious or otherwise, I have been approached by unsaved, uncaring people who have said to me, “I cannot believe that a man of science would talk to a spirit in public?” These same scoffers and doubters will sit and listen to great religious music, will show admiration for great religious art, will recognize the change that takes place in an addict's sinful, physical and emotional condition, will recognize the history of spiritual relevance in the world, but because of their own bias, will not yield to the supreme sovereignty of God.

The grave is not the ending point in this excursion of humanity. From one end of the earth to the other, whether a monkey temple or a carving out of the wood of a tree, men have sought something greater to worship than themselves. At one time, the Lamas controlled Asia from the Danube to the Pacific. The God-less, communist Russians came in and destroyed all the Buddhist places of worship in Mongolia and Siberia. For thirty years, their worship at the base of the steps was deprived. One visit from the Dalai Lama erased their troubles of the past thirty years. The simplicity of Christ, which dominated Europe and America for hundreds of years, has been threatened by moral relevancy, technology, the winds of doubt promoted by academics and liberalism, but mankind with a need for the eternal security of the love of God through Christ will return to the cascades of the simplicity found in faith.


“Wonderful story of love;
Tell it to me again;
Wonderful story of love;
Wake the immortal strain!
Angels with rapture announce it,
Shepherds with wonder receive it;
Sinner, oh, won’t you believe it?
Wonderful story of love.”

Wonderful Story of Love
John M. Driver, 1892

Ten Cent Row

On one of my trips to London, I met a couple in the hotel from Arlington, TX. We enjoyed one another's company, went to a play together, and I was interested in them and their background just as I am interested in the background of most people I meet. They were in London buying British antiques for their home in Dallas. But, he was originally from Arlington, TX the area between Dallas and Ft. Worth. He had become a very successful millionaire businessman. He said as a child living in that area, in the cotton field picking cotton, he would see the truck of bottled drinks on the highway. His ambition was to be the driver of a drink truck; because he felt that he would have all the cold drinks he wanted to drink. His ambitions changed; and he and his wife, his assistant, became two of Texas's greatest entrepreneurs.

In the small country school where I graduated (13 in my high school graduating class) I remember the principal saying to a group of senior boys, of which I was a member, ”you boys can do anything you want to do, because you are Americans”. Have our teachers, parents and pastors and other leaders forgotten this, the greatest principal of American life?

After working my way through 4 years and graduating from the University of Chapel Hill, I went on to medical school at the University of Tennessee, Memphis. I lived in an apartment, in a garage, next to an alley in a very disreputable part of the city. Two other young men lived with me. We prepared our own food and lived on almost nothing. There was one grocery store in the neighborhood which had a ten cent row. All the food in this row was just ten cents. Most of the cans were abused in some way, label torn, outside dented. This is where we obtained our groceries which we cooked ourselves.

Going to school with a full schedule during the day, I had a variety of jobs at other times. On weekends, I would work as a shoe salesman, in a large department store (Goldsmith's, Dan Cohen). At night, I sold at one time, cookware. I would buy the groceries, an elderly black woman would prepare the food. I would serve the food at a dinner party for a hostess; and then I would attempt to sell the cookware and method of cooking to her guests. For several years, I sold pre-need cemetery property for pre-need customers in the large Forest Hills cemetery on the edge of Memphis, near present day Graceland. This is a cemetery where Elvis was first buried in the great mausoleum before he was buried at Graceland. The latter was probably some of the most rewarding work of my life; because I had the opportunity to talk to people about a matter which most do not want to consider. When I talk with young people who think their lives are so hard, I have very little sympathy because many of us went to school and received our training before the time of the largess of scholarships and government grants.

The economy will not be solved by people who are not conservative. Liberals know nothing of conservation. Conservation is a mindset, you either have it or you don't. If you were reared in a home where everything was handed to you, no questions asked, you were spoiled to the erroneous idea that it is a “me” world and “me” can have anything I want, regardless of need. This narcissism and lack of discipline will get an individual or a nation into the financial eclipse we face today led by the demon of liberalism, President Obama, a total economic illiterate, and his minions of liberal depravity. Those who have never had to do without anything have never had to work for anything, have never had to wait for anything, can ride in the Communist saddle on the horse of environmentalism, deceiving a dumbed down electorate. The economy will not get any better until self-centered, self-serving opinion molders learn the honor of labor and honesty.

I had two great friends in the military, one a black medical officer, came from the poverty of the Mississippi Delta. From the cotton fields of the Mississippi delta, his concerned parents, working several jobs and saw him through the black medical school, Meharry in Nashville, TN. He knew conservatism and until the military, had never had a pair of shoes except work shoes, brogans. Another, a German Jew, whose parents and seven brothers and sisters died in Hitler's gas chambers, was not exterminated because he was a dentist before the Holocaust. He was kept alive in order to take the gold out of the teeth of those exterminated. After the war, he came to this country, from the benevolence of American Jewry. He attended dental courses at Howard University and then went into the American military as an Army Dental Officer. These two Army officers, like your writer, a retired Army Medical Officer, knew conservatism, knew the principles of the democratic republic which we call the United States of America.


Pledge to be true for America
More dreams will be born…
Hand On Our Heart For America, Trade Martin