Obedience?

This morning I was reading the scriptures for Mass and one part of the scripture, below, leaped out at me: “The body is not meant for immorality...”

1Corinthians 6:13-20
[13] ....The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
[14] And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
[15] Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
[16] Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two shall become one flesh."
[17] But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
[18] Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body.
[19] Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own;
[20] you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 

That set my mind to musing on what has been going on in societies all over the world. Pretty much everywhere people have decided that they can do whatever they want, very little is considered  immoral, and certainly almost nothing concerning the body and sex. Sadly, even Christians seem to act this way. Since the 1960s when so called sexual freedom became the norm, people have done what ever they wished with their bodies, the above scripture forgotten, God's injunctions against sex outside of marriage forgotten, consequences forgotten. Each one decided they knew best, an attitude God allows when people are willfully sinful. So sleeping around, bootie calls, living together, friends with benefits became accepted practice in societies around the world.


And the chance of pregnancy or the pregnancies that resulted from this immoral behavior were dealt with by birth control and abortion. I have always felt that it is a very short step from contraception’s “I don’t want babies” to abortion’s “I don’t want this baby,” which tie the two behaviors together. So now the people have forgotten that they are members of Christ and that everything they do in their immorality, they make Christ do. No longer do they glorify God in their bodies. Abortion has almost become birth control. Women are told it is a blob of tissue but science advancements have shown that at no time is the unborn baby a blob of tissue, the DNA is always human. Before the woman even realizes that she is pregnant, the child looks human and has a beating heart. Talk about the miracle of birth - what sort of miracle could it be that at the moment of birth this blob of tissue becomes a human child?! Women are mislead into killing their babies. There is no other way to look at it. Mothers (and, yes, they are mothers from the moment of conception) willfully murder their children and society says it is fine to do that.


Now society is looking at marriage. Already weakened by divorces brought on by failure to understand the sacredness of a union where two become one, and the inevitable cheapening of marriage by, in some cases, years and years of living together, the institution, which is the foundation of society, is crumbling. With sacred marriages on the wane, society has looked at the institution and said, “Why limit this sad affair to a man and a woman?” Anyone can be married to anyone if they but “love each other.” Beware! the worst has not yet come.


Soon there will be pressure to say that several may be married, as Mormons formerly did and some cults still do. And why not a man and a boy? How about a woman and her monkey? Why not two men and two women? They “love each other” and isn’t that the defining criteria for marriage? Can “love” be limited?


So where does this leave God? Must He stand by while we ignore His commands? How long will He wait to chastise us for our sins? What will we have to say for ourselves at the final judgement? Just what are your excuses for doing as you pleased with your body and your life? And if you call yourself Christian, even more so, what will you say to your Lord when you see Him face to face?


If societies all over the world are crumbling, facing degeneration, disaster and war, financial ruin, seemingly unexplained  natural disasters- tsunamis, hurricanes, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, etc - can it be that God is expressing His displeasure? Will His people continue on their merry way to the end of time? I hope not, I pray not!

Everything old is new again

I recently found an April 5, 1943 issue of Life magazine among my mother's things. It was the year she married, the year my sister was born. Two ads jumped out at me.

The first was put in by American Locomotive

EVER FACE A FIRING SQUAD?

Take a good long look. This is what a condemned man...or woman... sees at twenty feet. No one has ever come back to describe that last moment before the scene is suddenly blacked out with a rattle of fire and a burst of lead.

    But even a brave man or a courageous woman facing such a scene must hope feverishly that this is all just a bad dream from which there will be an awakening...a  vision from a remembered movie in which someone will come, will come, in time. But no one comes.

    Thousands....hundreds of thousands...of human beings, like yourself, have had just such a last glimpse of life during the past few years. And they, too, have hoped it was a dream. But it wasn't.

     How far removed do you think you are from playing the star part in such a  performance as this? Two years, three years, maybe four years...if the Japs and Nazis win.

    And don't think that you can talk yourself out of it if the time comes. Don't think that you can turn coat; that begging for mercy on bended knees will spare you; that promising to be good, to cooperate, will help. Some patriot in your neighborhood will kill one of their officers in the night, and the next day you will be rounded up with nine or nineteen or ninety-nine others...to be shot.

    This is something for all of us to think of...to dream of while we can still awaken to the clean air of freedom.

    It is something to make all us of resolve that all our waking will be bent to the one job of winning the war...that whatever we know we can do, we will do...and that whatever else we can find to do, we will also do.

    For unless all of us put the winning of this war before everything else, a lot of eyes that now look on this page may face the same scene in reality,

    Not somebody else's eyes, yours...

There is a global Muslim group active in the US which would like very much like to completely destroy American freedom as we know it. Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects democracy as a western system and un-Islamic despite aspects of it such as elections existing in the Islamic political system. Hizb ut-Tahrir argues democracy as a system is

“the rule of people, for the people, by the people. The basis of the democratic system is that people possess the right of sovereignty, choice and implementation. ... it is a Kufr system because it is laid down by man and it is not from the Shari'ah Laws.”

If the current climate of revolution prevails, and the radical Muslims gain the upper hand because of their prior organizing, there is no doubt that they will indeed be killing people who will not agree to live under Shari'ah law. There are 2.6 million Muslims now but even without revolution, there are predicted to be 6.2 in 10 years. There are 2000 mosques already.

As Christians we are to be civilly responsible. We are not to be angry or fearful. We are to be as wise a serpents but as gentle as doves. We must however open our eyes and be aware of the work that is being done to remove America's freedom, a freedom that is unique in all the world. We have taken it for granted I'm afraid.

The Second Ad

The Magazine Publishers of America

If, they win

....only our dead are free

These are our enemies. They have only one idea—to kill, and kill, and kill, until they conquer the world. Then, by the whip, the sword and the gallows, they will rule. No longer will you be free to speak or write your thoughts, to worship God in your own way. Only our dead will be free. Only the host who will fall before the enemy will know peace. Civilization will be set back a thousand years. 

    Make no mistake about it—you cannot think of this as other wars. You cannot regard your foe this time simply as people with a wrong idea. This time you win—or die. This time you get no second chance. This time you free the world, or else you lose it. Surely that is work the best fight of your life—worth anything that you can give or do.

There are some words of truth for this age in these words. The fight we are in now is not yet fought with guns and bullets but the enemy would take away your freedom just as surely. The socialists, communists and anarchists, together with the radical, jihad Muslims are waging a war against America, against our way of life, against our freedom. Things are not perfect by a long shot but we are as yet a free people. Open your eyes and slumber no longer. Be responsible for yourself, your family, your neighbor. Give what you can, do what you can. But please, don't just ignore the battle which is beginning to rage about you.

Nothing has changed

A friend sent me these words from Jedediah Morse (who was the father of Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse Code) and I immediately thought: these words are as true today as they were back in 1799. There is no freedom of any kind without God.


"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of it's doctrines, or the neglect of it's institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism. All efforts to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of govenment, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."

Jedediah Morse, 1799

Restoring Courage

When Glenn Beck announced his Restoring Courage event, my first reaction was to actually go to Israel since I have never been. But circumstances prevented that or I thought they did. When merchandise supporting the event was available, I ordered the silicone bracelet and the yard signs. I have worn the bracelet most days but I am aware of a reluctance, knowing that it could bring down criticism on me. The yard signs are still in the box. I lacked the courage to put them out, even for the day of the event. I don't even live on a particularly busy street so few would have seen them.

I think of myself as a realist but perhaps I am really a pessimist. I do expect the worse to happen and I struggle to hang on to hope. Glenn Beck's words today at his event in Jerusalem were inspiring. As he spoke, I began to take notes:

• Hold on to what is Right, Good and True
• Fear is the pathway to surrender
• Courage is the first step into the dark
• Rights go arm in arm with responsibility
• Do not fear to call evil by its name

I needed to hear these things and to make them realities in my life. There is that old saying: If it is to be, it's up to me. I believe that to be the path out of the mess Americans have gotten themselves into. We could say that the government has done all these horrible things, spending 40% more money than they have but it is we who have also done that. We lived on our credit cards, our home equity and put nothing into savings for emergencies. This is the same as the government. The only difference is that if we write checks which we have no money to cover, that's called fraud but when the government kites checks it's called deficit spending. Let's speak the truth, it is fraud for the government as well.

At the end of the Restoring Courage event, a young black singer sang the song "Make Them Hear You." I was taken by that song which came from the musical Ragtime. I think perhaps it should be the theme song for Americans who want to return to the times on honor, dignity, goodness, trustworthiness, and all the virtues which made American the exceptional country that it was.

So I say, "Make them hear you!" Make the entrenched politicians and career bureaucrats hear you. Speak out. Be not afraid, speak out; make them hear you loud and clear.

What Holds Us Back?

Lord only knows the economic news is bad but strangely, people seem to be able to ignore it and go on with their lives with no worry. Why? Professors Kahneman and Tversky at the University of Chicago, proved it again and again: the average person avoids risk when seeking gains, but is willing to embrace risk to avoid losses. People would rather hang on to what they have or what they think they have, seemingly avoiding the risk of losing it. But the reality is that they are already going to lose what they have, it is just a question of when. The ones who are willing to accept losses now will minimize their risk of losing all.

Political ads that point out the coming economic earthquake being inexorably brought on by our government spending 27% more than it takes in, are ignored because they alienate the viewer/listener. When confronted with unpleasant news, they prefer to direct their attention elsewhere. Those that do listen sometimes attach a negative view to the one delivering the message. How can the few that speak the truth about the real economic situation, which won't end until the over-spending does, get folks to listen to the truth and motivate them to do something about it?

 These images from the 1930s may be a reminder that times like those that brought such poverty to so many can indeed happen again.

Please do not say to yourself, “Economic issues don't mean anything to me.” Truly, inflation brought on by these economic issues you don't care about will impact your life and it will grow worse and worse if ordinary American citizens like you and I continue to direct their attention to entertainment and other distractions. Pray for wisdom and just do the most important thing first.

Memorial Day

Almighty God, you have given us this good land for our heritage. We humbly ask you that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of your favor and glad to do your will. Bless our land with honorable endeavor, sound learning and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way.
Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people the multitude brought here out of many nations and tongues. Endow with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in your name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to your law we may show forth your praise among the nations on earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble do not allow our trust in you to fail. Amen.

Thomas Jefferson

We began with an awareness of our need for God's help in maintaining the goodness of America.


We have been recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these things were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

Abraham Lincoln

Years later we recognized that we were straying from God's ways in spite of all God had given us.

O Merciful God, we cry to Thee for pardon and for mercy. We are "an unbelieving and perverse generation." We are disobedient, disloyal and ungrateful to Thee. We have excluded Thee from our homes, our schools, our business places. We are no longer worthy to be called Thy
children. But Merciful God, spare America! Forgive us! Save us from the scourge which we have
deserved. Teach us Thy Law, and move our wills to serve Thee, henceforth. Merciful God, please
spare America.
Apostles of the Holy Spirit

In these times we have strayed far, far away from our Creator. If we fail to return, God will once and for all turn His back on America. On this Memorial Day when we remember the many who gave their lives to preserve our liberty, pray that we may once again become the people God once blessed in the founding of America.

Israel

More and more I am truly concerned about the Arab/Muslim/Palestinian attitude toward Israel. When they are teaching even their children to hate Jews and to kill them, it can't end well. What Glenn Beck said last night is true. The Palestinians are provoking Israel in every way but when Israel responds, then Palestine will cry to the world, "Aggressor!" This is being created as a Catch-22 situation for Israel. No matter how you feel about Israel, it can't be a good thing that this plan is being put in place. No matter what Israel does, the Arab/Muslim/Palestinians will never cease wanting to wipe them off the face of the earth. And when or if they succeed, then they will come for the United States. Don't think they won't!

With Egypt re-forming the Nazi party openly, what we said would never happen again is being planned. We said we would never forget, but have we? It is sad to think that some of the people who fought in that war or were victims of the Holocaust are still alive but some countries are planning the very same thing again. Don't stick your head in the sand or blindly refuse to see what is happening. It will certainly not stop with Israel! All that is needed for evil to triumph is that good men and women do nothing. Do something!