God Helps Believers More

Foul Satan! Your roam would abruptly end,
If God decreed! Angel legions on hold
By His constraint would pour forth if He send;
O, how fast would heaven void of beings bold,
If the tether loosed! Thus does Satan rend
All men who do not ask the Lord for aid;
Alas, poor lost, all alone you must fend,
For God insists your choice be freely made.
To receive the hand that quells your lifestorm,
You must ask Him first; His aid can't be bought;
If so, heaven would fill with the lukewarm,
Men who pled not, for God's help to be wrought!
Look not to Him, mortal, in futile hope,
That absent your choosing He'll help you cope!

The question often asked, with implied criticism, by unbelievers is, Why does a loving God let bad things happen to people? I assure you that God is just and fair; He allows bad things to happen to everybody, bad or good alike. Yes, He loves everybody, but He is under no obligation to help people who reject Him, and the same disaster that strikes unbelievers also strikes believers.

"He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous." (Matthew 5:45)

If an earthquake kills 25,000 Turks, there are good men and evil men among the casualities. But He promises special care to those who choose to follow the commands of Jesus to love others. This does not mean that He protects believers from the same troubles that fall on others, but He might; this is because some might have special missions yet to accomplish, and it is in His will that they be saved in order to complete their assignments. Sometimes an angel is assigned to assist a follower; some Bible passages are: Psalm 34:7; 91:9-12; Daniel 10:15-19; Matthew 4:6; 18:10; Acts 5:17-20; 12:4-14; and there are many others.

God loves all people, but He loses patience with those who continually reject and criticize Him. Sometimes He sends a greater delusion so that they will believe it and be more fit to be lost than they were at first (See 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12). For His faithful followers He is more protective and often provides them healing and extensions of life. I have been the recipient of several miracles, such as that the doctors predicted I would surely die 15 years ago, but here I am; if I live until midnight tonight, it will be 16 extra years. I was blind for 4 months this year; opthamologists told me it was for good; but at 2 p.m. on August 18, my eyesight returned, given back to me after much prayer by many. That is why I write this blog; I must use every precious minute hoping to bear fruit for Him. Yes, God is much more protective of those who love Him.

Your Own Angel

No one there could detect the angel host
Surrounding Golgatha where Jesus hung
Suspended with thieves on a Roman post,
His blood the wages of sin o'erflung;
He knew not his peril, who drove the nail,
Nor did he who speared heaven's sinless Lamb,
How those acts angered, so the hosts turned pale!
Their charade had ceased, if the great I AM
The unseen furies an attack allow;
No "Charge!" was given, the shame to avenge;
The farce went on, so Grace to men endow;
So men could live, His death did Death unhinge!
Jesus for love did His rescue forbid,
When He pled God, they knew not what they did!

"Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have entertained angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:2)

There is no doubt that hundreds, maybe thousands of angels hovered about the cross when Jesus was crucified. Yes, there are angels among us humans that we do not know or see. There are fallen angels, who are called demons; they are trying to get us to commit sin. There are good angels, guarding believers and carrying out specific missions for God. There are curious angels, who freely go and come from heaven to earth, and who want to check curiosities out for themselves.

"The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them." (Psalm 34:7)

God is not alone. One place in the Bible says there are 10,000 X 10,000 angels around the throne in heaven. There are more than 200 scripture passages about angels mixing with humans. This may be the biggest obstacle for a person sincerely trying to believe the Bible and follow Jesus---to believe in a supernatural world that mixes with our world all the time, and yet is not detected by any of our 5 senses. It is there, though, and it is just as real as our physical world. You can have your own angel, by believing in Jesus as Lord, and loving others.

Ode To Grace

Had sin remained unborn, its evil chill
Ne'er allowed, the forces of good dismay;
The Angel of Light, fair Lucifer still;
Then there would be no need for Judgment Day;
No fallen ones or Lake of Fire ablaze;
Men would not live, been never created;
No labor; no sweat; no Time marking days;
God's great gift of Grace fore'er awaited!
Woe to the world! Without God's sublime Grace,
His answer to evil's Gordian* riddle,
Death defeated to rescue human's race,
Leaving not one jot**, or missing tittle***!
Man, you must know, it was Lucifer's deed,
That provoked God with Grace to intercede!

*Gordian Knot, difficult to untie
**dotted i
***crossed t

Men have longed for a world without evil. They say, If God is so great and powerful, He could just as easily have created this world without evil in it. He need not have created Lucifer, the traitor angel who rebelled against Him in heaven (Revelation 12), and persuaded a third of all angels to join him. As a general rule, angels do not disobey God, or cause trouble. Lucifer's sin was the first one committed, because man had not yet been created.

Neither did God, they say, have to put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9), so that Adam and Eve would not have been tempted to sin by disobeying God and eating of it, which was man's original sin.

Why? The answer is that God wanted a being with Him in heaven who had a completely free will; He wanted a creature that loved His Son Jesus enough to choose the narrow path of righteousness instead of the easy path of living without any moral restraint. He would rather have no one in heaven than robots who were bribed to come there.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..." (Ephesians 2:8)

The intricate theology that explains grace does not have to be understood by us in order to take advantage of God's offer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

Believers Stray. Too

Why does the believer continue to sin?
He knows, of all men, that God will chastise.
The Christian knows well that his God made men,
How Christ was travailed their souls to reprise,
And scriptures which teach him how best to hew;
That wages of sin mean death for the lost,
Distress in their lives for the redeemed few!
He knows that his sin incurs massive cost;
They serve only to nail Jesus anew,
And, seen by the lost, helps them to resist;
Gives new strength to Satan, men to pursue,
Plus, his future reward, less will consist!
Knowing all this, he trespasses anyway,
By will and intent, determined to stray!

When a Christian tries to persuade a friend to join him in the quest to follow Jesus, he is often considered as a person who thinks he is better than his friend. Would that it was true! No, he's no better; he sins, too; as much or more than his friend. In fact, observing the two of them as God can, it would be difficult to tell which is the Christian, and which is the unsaved friend! If the only observable difference between them is that the Christian is seen in church at times, maybe holding a Bible, there is no guarantee that the believer is a believer.

However, there would be one positive sign: He is trying to save his friend from an eternity in hell by trying to persuade him to join him on the trail of the saved! That is an act of love, and love for your friend is the best way to win God's approval. There are many other ways to win His approbation, also. Jesus emphasized dramatically some of the ways in teaching about judgment day. When every dead person has been resurrected at the end of time, they will be separated like sheep from goats in front of King Jesus.

"Then the King will say to those on the right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'" (Matthew 25:34-36)

Love alone is not enough, though; you must believe in Jesus.

The Deer Hunter And God

How oft the virgin light of breaking day
Have God and I watched silent from our perch;
Stygian darkness first shows a twinge of gray,
Night's curtain rises like a crescent church;
Its stage in the east glows ever brighter,
Pushed up and up by the sun's red aura;
Behind us a bird's call hails the brighter!
Burst then golden rays, like a queen's tiara,
Fill the east quadrant; a new day is born!
Such a thrill for me is enough---nay, more,
For joy to outweigh my life's greatest mourn,
And we've shared this great thrill uncounted score!
Shed no tears for me; I've seen many crowns;
Nothing matches it, when day darkness gowns!

I might as well confess it; I am an early riser, which is not the most popular role at our house. Dawn usually breaks after I have read the newspaper, prepared and eaten breakfast. My most sought-after blog thus far is The Deer Hunter's Prayer, which pleased me to have so many lookers, until I looked more closely and found there is a web page called The Deer Hunter's Prayer for Michigan deer hunters. That explains the numerous Google searches for my poem by name. At first I thought I had become a great poet.

Nevertheless, my commentary for The Deer Hunter's Prayer is appropriate for the many early risers who use the extra time as a wonderful quiet period to spend with God, by reading and meditating on His word, and for prayer. You can actually make a companion of God. The poem above is an attempt to describe the wonder of breaking day experienced after sitting alone in a deerhouse for an hour or more in the darkness of night. Such times, I have found, are wonderful for communing with, and thinking about God.

Yes, a human person, like you and me, can become intimate with God and feel His presence sitting in the stand with you. It won't happen that way for most people; it could, but most won't take the time, or love their sleep too much. Why not drop the deer hunting; just get up at 5 o'clock, walk out on your patio, and look at the stars. Turn the porch light off. Let it get pitch-black dark. Watch the sun rise. That would be easier if your patio is facing eastward. Think about God; He made all this, and you, too.

The Prayer Of One Learning To Love

"Dear Lord, help me subdue my baser parts,
That endless strive my actions control;
Forever seal impotent anger's darts;
Slay ego in solitude's hidden hold;
May greed wither away on spartan vines.
Teach my tongue never to utter complaint,
Have my ears reject tales of others' crimes.
Give no place to hate, or voice to cruel spite,
Nor life to evil's sway by hell's creatures;
Keep my mind from dwelling on lusts of night;
Banish from my life all demon teachers.
Dear Lord, please come back to us very soon;
I will sing only Yours, no other tune.

Prayer is talking to God, or thinking, giving Him praise and making requests. He receives all our words, and it pleases Him, especially when we ask for help in improving ourselves. The most important gift we can make to Him is to love others, and you can see in the poem above a few of the ways we can love others. Pride, ego, angry words, greed, gossip, revenge, lust, and many other such negatives from us to others is the opposite of love. These are natural reactions of our human natures; it takes a lot of determination to rid ourselves of these evils. Becoming a believer in Jesus requires us to hate these things and to work hard to eliminate them.

Perhaps the most difficult of all is to show love for those who despise us as Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount. No one in the world had ever taught such things, or heard them, especially the Jews, who had been taught from childhood the creed of an 'eye for an eye'. They were astonished when Jesus said,

"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery'. But I tell you that any one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:27-28)

It is easy to see why most people find it difficult to follow Jesus' commands. This is one of them. By the way, if you read the Qur'an, the 'bible' of Islam, you will easily see that Jehovah God and the god called Allah, are not the same being. God is a God of love, as the Bible testifies; but the Qur'an shows that Islam is based on fear.

God's Heart Aches From Your Sins

You can offend men, but you sin to God;
Slaying the Hittite, David cursed the Lord.
How higher the heights might David have trod,
Greater deeds would greater acclaim afford,
Had the shepherd boy lived in perfect faith!
Each of us, in dire straits, in envy said,
"If I could be an angel, one trial face,
Not tried so much by sin, that furnace dread."
But you can earn God's David-favor,
By sinning less, and by loving Him more;
Requite your past wrongs; repent, for His savor,
As David, on his knees, wept tears galore.
Give His heart rest from its pain unending,
By your less sinning, your heart more bending.

The angels were tempted once, when Lucifer rebelled against God; one-third chose to betray, too; but no other angel has sinned, or is tempted to sin. Mohammad said that Gabriel told him about a god named Allah, but that was not the angel Gabriel. It might have been Lucifer.

Psalm 51 portrays the repentance of David for his terrible sin of having Uriah killed, because he lusted after his wife. That's how every Christian should repent after sinning, and Christians do commit sins, many misdeeds. People ask me, What is sin? A sin, by definition is only to God; it is breaking one of His commands, or failing to follow His command. Non-believers and believers all sin. In the case of the non-believer, it is a sin not to believe in Jesus as Lord; a non-believer does not repent, which means to be sorry for sinning. God hates sin; He remembers every sin a non-believer commits in his life, and on Judgment Day, the person will be reminded of each of his sins.

When any person accepts Jesus as Lord, he must repent of past sins and make a sincere effort to sin less in the future. When he repents by confessing his sins in secret to God and asking forgiveness, God forgives Him and erases the sins from His memory. Any sin that a believer commits after that is like nailing Christ anew to the cross; God hurts for those sins more than those of the non-believer. Those sins, too, must be confessed and repented for; not that the believer will lose his chance for heaven, but that God aches for his follower's misdeeds.

God Flies Ahead To Sustain You

Our lives are burdened, do whate'er we will;
If we have no want, sickness demands toll;
Attacks come unbidden, their causes nil;
Heartbreak oft does his grim embrace enfold.
Grist for the mills of war, some stand exposed,
Their precious blood added to oceans spilled.
Of distress and pain are our days composed,
Sorrow's shroud drowning joy's attempt to gild!
For comfort, we must look to Him Who cares;
God knows the hard path that you must travel;
He flies ahead, and healing balm prepares,
So under life's load you'll not unravel!
Sustaining care He lavishes on you,
To level the valleys you must pass through!

Psalm 23
A Psalm of David

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want,
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake,
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table for me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

God's Word Won't Return Void

How hard to keep your faith, when none respond!
Toiling in whited fields, year after year,
Telling the gospel news, hither and yon,
Yet none reborn, to build your sagging cheer!
To move the mountain, seems a task in vain,
With little faith that one will honor the call;
But proclaim you must, for lost you might gain;
Your doubt must not cause ripe fruit fail to fall.
To build your faith, take journeys in the Book;
Noah preached six-score years to no effect;
Isaiah was sawn for the pains he took!
Surely, you have not paid so much as yet.
Do not weary in casting saving bread;
It won't return void; none in vain is spread.

It took Noah 120 years to build the Ark; thousands came to gawk and mock, and he warned them to repent of their sins to be saved from drowning in the flood. It had not yet rained in the world; they refused to believe him; instead they laughed at him. He and his family went aboard, and God let it rain for 40 days and nights. Everyone not on the Ark drowned.

Isaiah was told by God to tell the Jews to repent of their sins; that God was going to seal up their minds so that when the Messiah came, they would not understand what He said in order to be saved. They laughed at Isaiah and continued in their sins. When they grew tired of hearing the same message from Isaiah, they put him in a hollow log and sawed it in two. When Jesus the Messiah came, their minds were sealed, and they rejected His words.

"so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11)

Isaiah's words frrom God accomplished His purpose, and so did Noah's. So will my words accomplish His purpose. I write these blogs every day in hope that someone will read them and grow closer to God. The scripture above assures me that the words I write will have their effect.

Bewitching Balm Hides The Real

Your life is brief, like a buning taper*,
And so cheaply sold; death may come by sword,
Famine, or disease; in its short caper,
You will meet the scythe that severs its cord,
And it frees you from the suff'rings of earth.
You needn't fear final toll of the bell,
Nor losing the life whose living brings dearth;
For you know life's not much sweeter than hell;
Better to live in service to the Lord,
Than for lesser grail**! If life you cherish
More than your soul, on you has Satan poured
Bewitching balm, and you vainly perish!
Let not love of life dampen Christian zeal,
Nor hell-sent balm becloud that which is real!

*candle **achievements

In the joys of youth each of us loses sight of how brief life really is. As you read this, your death is not even a whisper in your mind; the longer you live, the shorter is the time you have yet to live. How wise God is! He gives us that invincible feeling that we will live forever! There will come a day, and it comes sooner than you expect, when you suddenly realize that your life is one-half used up, or two-thirds, or three-fourths. or nine-tenths.

Old age may be the years in which we are the wisest, but then the time is past when the wisdom can be of much benefit. If we become very, very wise, we realize that a lot of life has been eaten up struggling against poverty, disease, trying to gain knowledge of what is the meaning of life, or repaying society precious time that we could have used serving God.

When we are young, we love our youth, and we hate to give it up to serve others; but when we are old, we realize we should be serving others, but we are not physically able, or we have very little time left for service. We begin to see, as we grow older and wiser, that large chunks of our brief spare time have been used selfishly, gratifying our own desires, of which we had plenty. At that point, if we are very, very, very wise, the thought occurs, why didn't I live more of my younger days in service to God? My life would have been equally or more enjoyable, and my service would have guaranteed an eternity of happiness with God in heaven.

What A Price Jesus Paid

Agony showed its cruel face in the flood,
When men squirmed, that one last breath to inhale;
And as Egypt's young prides drowned in the mud,
The God-driven sea o'er them prevail.
What depths of pain among the millions slain,
We'll never know, in Hitler's holacaust?
No pen can describe screams lifted in vain.
Where in torment died vast legions of lost;
Nor can sanity hold when minds are thrust
Into the bloody battles of earth's wars!
All these fade in His cry of wounded trust,
Torn from Christ when hung 'twixt earth and stars:
"My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?"
What a price He paid, for us to be free!

Those readers who are familiar with the words of the Bible will recognize in the lines of this poem the drowning of all people except the eight in Noah's family early in human history (Genesis 6); the drowning of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, because they persisted in chasing the Israelites into the dry ground of the sea-bottom while God had held the waters back, but released them, destroying the army (Exodus 14:26-28); and one of the statements of Jesus as He was dying on the cross.

It is understandable that because of the suffering He endured during His trial and crucifixion, Jesus may have been pushed to the extreme limits of endurance, enough to call on His Father with a human question that any of us might have made under such circumstances. After all, the tormented cry came while Jesus was being tortured to death for all the sins of mankind---the enormity of the wages He paid was matched by the enormity of hurt and stress.

However, there is another reason that Jesus made this cry. Throughout His ministry on earth, He was very conscious of the approximately 340 prophecies about Him and His life in the Old Testament. Had He failed to fulfill every single one, it would have given critics and doubters a logical basis for refutation of His Messiahship. Therefore, throughout His career, He went out of His way to fulfill every prophecy, even those who didn't seem significant. For example, He could have walked into Jerusalem that last week, but since Zechariah 9:9 prophesied that He would enter Jerusalem 'riding on a donkey', He made it a point to secure a donkey to ride on. The doubters have searched for one violation, but they have failed.

If you will open you Bible to Psalm 22 and read the first verse, you will find this very cry in the same words. Since this was a hymn that Jews in synagogues had been singing since the time David wrote it one thousand years ago, Jesus knew the Jews surrounding the cross would remember the first line, which was the title, of that Psalm. Perhaps He meant it as a reminder that He was in fact the Messiah described by David that was to come. What an awesome Savior! How can anyone doubt the truth of the Bible?

The Lord Sustains

Let no sorrow your pathway dim,
Nor tears becloud your view of Him;
Whate'er betide, He stays your friend,
Where'er you go, He will attend.

Do not despair; you're not forgot;
God knows your need, and lingers not,
To see you through, and then restore,
Like Job, your joy, full as before.

Count you not on human device,
When burdens crush, and seek their price;
Your Redeemer's ready to pay,
Whate'er it takes, each weary day.

Your eyes keep fixed on heaven's goal,
Of endless ages for your soul;
The hurts of life but briefly pain,
Make sweeter seem Zion's refrain.

Lift up your head; His praises sing;
He supplies needs of ev'rything;
Though Satan prey and buffet sore,
Your God sustains forevermore!

A few people believe that God made the world, put us in it, wound it up like an old mantel clock, and let it run by itself; He does not intervene in the affairs of men. Wrong! The Bible tells us clearly that God watches over His children, which are those who follow Jesus His Son.

I can personally vouch for this truth. I had quadruple bypass heart surgery in 1982 and almost died. Hours after the operation I was found to be bleeding internally. That same night they undid the stitches, opened my chest again, and patched whatever was leaking blood, but it took 81 units of donated blood, and I spent a week in ICU with the outcome in doubt. Fortunately, I had a lot of Christians praying to God in my behalf. What a wonderful thing for me to know lying with a large machine breathing for me! The waiting room was crowded with friends and ministers. A few days later, when God had turned the tide in my favor, my doctor said comfortingly, "I think I've given you 10 more years."
Ten more years? I'm not but 58; I plan to live 20 or 30 more years, or so I thought.

That was 26 years ago, I'm 83, which shows you what God can do for you if you love Jesus His Son, and ask Him. I was completely blind for 4 months this year, and according to two ophthalmologists I would never see again. WRONG! At 2 pm on August 18th, in a twinkling, my eyesight came back, and here I am, hunting, finding, and pecking the characters in this daily blog. Prayers to God of Christian friends convinced Him to give me back my sight, and you can "take it to the bank" that I'm not going to waste a minute of this precious gift looking at Oprah; I'm working for my God that has poured out His blessings on me!

"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19)

The Dying Need No Beads

Go ahead, use the beads, if they will aid

Your prayer, the divine seat of power reach;

Any crutch that helps pierce the murky shade

Between pleader and God speeds the beseech;

But if the glass is used to help remind

The child of God how worthy the request,

It should not be for comfort of the kind

That redeems the soul in dire travail best!

Does the drowning need his memory jog

To send skyward his last despairing prayer?

Or the dying report his miry bog

Before screaming to any god for care?

Prayer for the dying soul with dying needs

Demands no rote speech, or counting glass beads!



The rosary beads of our Catholic brothers may be helpful for reciting countless memorized prayers. Anything that gives comfort and confidence, helping strugglers in this world to praise and worship God, is certainly worthwhile. But the person whose life has been lived apart from God and is in iminiment danger of death and having his soul taken by Satan to hell to spend eternity needs no rote formula to cry out for help to the Savior Jesus Christ. In such a situation the beads that are a comfort to the believer whose soul is safely in the care of Jesus Christ would be of little help to the lost and dying one.



Any kind of cry for help from sinner to Savior is instantly recognized by the One Who gave His life so that any that ask for help can be saved. An unintelligible moan can convey guilt and remorse as well as carefully worded prayers which have been repeated many times. A lost soul near death and on the edge of a dreadful eternity can get God's attention with a gesture, a cry, or even with pleading eyes fixed on the throne of God. Didn't the dying thief on the cross next to Jesus make a last-minute request to be remembered by the Son, and didn't the answer convey the good news that on the very day he would be in Paradise with the dying Savior? As long as life remains to a person, it is not too late to be admitted to heaven. Call for him in any way possible, and He will take care of you.

Pays Our Great Price

I heard them say that Jesus died for me,
And surely, I ought to love Him for that!
But then I thought of earth's bloody melee,
Killing enjoyed, man's favorite format;
Young men born grist for old men's warring mill;
Agony so great, equal, or more, than His;
Some as nobly, and some as free of will!
I thought, Why is He owed as much as this?
And then His Spirit shed on me the light:
How His the only death could free grace bring;
That death of the sinless can sin requite;
Death brought by Adam, His cancel that sting!
Dear ones, there is no other sacrifice
That for us, sinners all, pays our great price!

Satan sees to it that when we are told that Jesus died for us, a doubt is raised; why should we feel guilty for Adam's foolish sin? But we are not so much guilty of Adam's sin as that we suffer the penalty of death for it, but because of his sin, he brought physical death to himself and on the whole human race. If he had not sinned, he could have stayed in the Garden of Eden where there was the Tree of Life, and he need not have ever died. Neither would we have died, for we would have access to the fruit of the Tree of Life. But God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden and doomed to death, and so are we. At least we would have been subject to physical and spiritual death had Jesus Christ not come to earth as a man and lived a sinless life. When He was crucified, He took our sins upon Himself; then He was resurrected, proving that if we accept Him for His sacrifice and love others as He loved us, we, too, will be resurrected to new life eternally.

"But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised." (1 Corinthians 15:12-13)

"For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)

Note that these quotes are quite close to each other in the Bible. I hope you will read he whole chapter in your Bible. It will answer any doubt that Satan raises about why we ought to love others as He loved us. All men's sins were paid for by Christ at His death, but only those who accept the gift of grace and believe in Jesus as Lord, and that He died and was resurrected, will be saved; they will be considered as sinless by God, not because they are actually sinless, but because Jesus erased their sins with His death!

Hearts Must Be Touched

Yes, the world knows how to kill, all right,
And with no real concern for the slaughter;
Her pious statesmen mourn with all their might,
For the million graves left across the water;
Their tears induced, before wives and mothers,
While secret threats increase the armor's din,
Booming to force their own ways on others.
Don't they know that God touched the tongues of men,
To form nations, so one could not rule all?
It is not chance that divides the races.
But His will, declared through Babel's fall,
That science's not the god man embraces.
Nations must fade away, peace to prevail;
Men's hearts must be touched, Christ's Kingdom to hail!

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3), it was their new capability of thought that incited the race to improve their living conditions. Thus began the quest of mankind for progress in all fields---science, philosophy, technology, etc. They brought upon themselves the flood that God used to destroy them all except Noah and his family, 8 in all, because men had grown so wicked that God was sorry He created them (Genesis 6). Once more they multiplied and began accumulating much new knowledge, including that of construction with brick instead of stone.

"They said to each other, 'Come, let's make brick and bake them thoroughly.' They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:3-4)

They intended to show themselves as so smart that they could build a tower up to God. Who knows what they would have done next? God saw in this an audacity, that His creature was attempting to make himself equal with his Creator. How was that any different from what Lucifer tried to do in rebelling against Him? Had man obeyed Him in the Garden of Eden, he would have been content to live in comfort in Paradise and never question his status as a creation of God. By committing the act, men made themselves ambitious. Our science has taught us the secrets of how God designed the universe; our technology has projected live pictures and voices around the world; and our philosophy is questioning all truth, making of God's Bible a collection of myths. How long will it be until God sees us as He saw the builders of the tower of Babel? How long do we have to question God's truth until He moves to end the audacity?

God Speaks To America

"O, America! You were never Mine!"
Says the Lord of Hosts. "But I longed for thee!
When the Pilgrims brought My Son to enshrine,
And your fathers in faith included Me!
What turned you away to Satan's enclave
And cancelled your witness to those abroad?
Who persuaded you your hearts to enslave?
Where were your saved when he came to defraud?
Did you vote 'Aye!' with the Devil's own crew,
Unborn babies to slay, when mothers will;
Free their wombs, so they can sin anew,
When it pleases them? Free, new lusts to fill?
Where is My beacon to the blinded world?"
Blinded themselves, their banner keep furled!

When the Pilgrims landed in America, they worshiped Jesus Christ, and this new land represented a haven in which they could practice Christianity without fear of government oppression. So, too, the founding fathers of the nation in the latter 18th century woite and adopted a constitution honoring God as the Giver of unalienable rights to all men. They were nearly all Christian in beliefs and declared this nation to be founded under God, and they hoped to show the world left behind how a nation ought to be.

Ignoring the "unalienable rights" of all, the Supreme Court took away all the rights of unborn babies in its decision on Roe v. Wade; from then on it is perfectly legal for a mother-to-be to have her babe aborted, which is a shady word for murdered, before birth. This license to kill immediately became a money-making behemoth for unscrupulous doctors, nurses, workers, and investors; today, 1000 babies a day are aborted in the nation that guarantees unalienable rights.

What "beacon" is this country to the Old World? How can we lay claim to any kind of righteousness when we abort babes and, in some states, permit same-sex marriages? America can't evangelize any nation; who seriously believes foreigners would respect a nation with our way of life? For shame! Shame on America!

Pray First For Others

I asked the Lord to care for me and mine,
Their illness and poverty to destroy;
I raised each by name, a daily design,
Pled God remove all that harm or annoy.
But of my friend's plight, a word was uttered not;
Of his woes, I neither cared or besought;
He endured as much as did all our lot;
I should pray for him first, as Jesus taught;
Then I heard him pray for me, and I knew,
God gives to others a whole lot more
When a friend beseeches, and not just you;
At last I prayed for him, late, not before!
My lesson learned, I prayed with more success;
Pray first for others; then my needs address.

Remember what Jesus commanded us to do in John 15:12, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." One of the best ways to show that you love as Jesus loved is to pray for others; consider their needs first in beseeching God for assistance. If you chance to hear another person praying for you, it both humbles and encourages you, and you have the assurance that God has heard the prayer and is more likely to grant it than if you had asked for yourself.

Please let me pray for you right now. "Dear Father in heaven, thank You for this reader who is looking at my blog today. I ask that You encourage him in whatever difficulty he may be encountering at this time. Help him to know how to do for others the things that they need done. Let him feel the power of God in the fulillment of whatever he asks you to do for a friend. Help him to believe in Your existence and Your love for him. Help him to know that his life is a blessing to others. I ask these favors in the name of Jesus Christ Your Son Who is my Savior and the Savior of the world. Amen" Thank you, my friend, for allowing me to do this.

How Not To Pray

See the Ferris wheel whirling in its spin,
Rising and falling, turn and turn about;
No riders but prayers of absent men,
Papers waving in ev'ry circled route;
A favor from God each gone author seeks.
Personal input is so very slight,
Such a cycled plea of rank laziness reeks!
If God were perched just over the wheel's height,
The petition would never His ear reach;
A prayer scores when the seeker's heart is known;
He must in earnest his Savior beseech,
To get answered, his all to God be shown!
A paper prayer on a revolving wheel
Will fail, if to God a people appeal!

God tells us to be persistent in praying or asking Him to help us; He is more apt to give ear to a prayer that is repeated many times, the seeker refusing to quit asking. This does not mean, however, attaching a piece of paper to a perpetually revolving wheel.

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." (Luke 18:1; the parable follows in Luke 18:2-8)

If a prayer is attached to a spinning wheel, it does not imply that it is being made to God on each turn of the wheel. In the Far East prayer wheels are common, but I would not advise a believer in Jesus Christ to use that method. When Jesus told us to be persistent, it means that God is more likely to give heed to an individual that literally or figuratively prostates himself in earnest beseechment and uses countless versions of word arrangement to lift his petition for the same object, even until he receives an answer; or, at least, until required to attend to other necessities.

In similar fashion devout Jews put paper petitions in crevices that exist in that portion of the temple wall which survives; this may have a better chance of success than the spinning wheel, but it is not likely to be answered because of the place in which it is put; except, possibly, in the extreme case of the seeker having exerted an heroic effort of sacrifice to reach the Wailing Wall, or input of some similar personal effort to have his prayer lifted to the Lord.

In attending to each prayer to Him, God considers the conditions of righteousness in the asker's heart; his motivation for asking; his willingness to put himself at risk if needed; the object of prayer (e.g., whether the individual benefitting from an affirmative answer is likely to contribute to the success of Christ's Kingdom), and a host of other factors too numerous to list, and not even known to human beings. We can safely rule out prayer wheels, though.

Without Knowing For Sure

I can't find You in this murky scrabble
That bombards me in discordant refrain;
"Here he is!" shouts one, above the babble;
"No!" screams another, in instant disdain;
"Mine is the lord! In him you must believe!"
Would that You silence the competing herd
With an earth-circling cross none could unreave,
And all men revere Your eternal Word!
All would then agree that Christ is the door;
The others man-made, and Jehovah fact.
But wait! Where then is faith, and so much more,
If God must be proved by a magic act?
Man must believe without knowing for sure,
Jesus is the door to heaven secure!

Carl Sagan, an atheistic scientist who became nationally popular with his television show on the Cosmos in the 1970's, showed a distant picture of earth; it was small, bluish, a mere pinpoint in space. He said that people on earth should look at how small and insignificant our planet is and realize that no creator would launch the immense universe and keep it developing matter for billions of years, merely to have it manufacture such a small bit of it so that man would have a safe habitat in which to live. He went on to ask, "If God really exists, why didn't he put a cross 100 kilometers long in orbit about the earth, so there would be no doubt about his existence?"

This is a good question, and it has a very good answer. He certainly could have done that, because God can do anything. If He had, though, and the miracle pointing to Him as Creator and Lord of the universe caused all men to believe in His existence, there would be no free choice for men that pointed the individual to guidance by Jesus Christ or guidance by Satan. God doesn't want anyone to worship Him who doesn't freely choose Him. If a miracle proved His existence, and all believed that He is, how could the Judge (God) determine which men had lived 'good' lives and which had lived 'evil' lives at the final judgment?

Salvation requires faith, and faith means you must act as if God is certain without knowing for sure that he is. There is no faith where there is certainty.

Prayer Works For All

Does God intervene in our lives today?
He sure does; miracles, and judgments, too;
Maybe less often than we faithful say,
Far more frequent than doubters believe true.
Troubles come to the just and the unjust;
Blessings fall on the sheep and wolf alike.
We're not blessed just because in Him we trust,
Or punished for refusing His invite.
God hears the prayers from all sorts of men,
And voids the laws of nature as He wills;
To one He still needs, years He may extend,
Than he who wasted his God-given skills!
The righteous can ask for great or small;
The unrighteous only for mercy call!

Prayer to God need not only be in formal words, memorized, with a special template, at a special time or place, or used only by ministers or church officials, but it must be sincere. Anyone can pray, and God is always on duty and promises to listen. If you have not been active in Christian circles, He will listen especially to you; He hopes you have even a slight interest in learning about Him and how to be His child. A beginner, though, has a more narrow scope of things he is free to ask for; he can ask for forgiveness, express sorrow for past sin, and ask God to help him to become Christian. More active Christians may ask Him for healing, success in work, assistance in fighting habitual bad habits; there is no limit to the kinds of things such persons can pray for; and they know that their prayers are heard by God, and that Jesus Christ is endorsing their request and adding His request to theirs. They can reasonably expect an affirmative answer, but they know that His answer will be according to His will; they will rejoice as much with a 'no' for answer as for a 'yes', and they know to wait as long as He needs---sometimes never---to get an answer.

"For the eyes of God are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer..."
(1 Peter 3:12)

You can pray silently, not even forming the words, but focusing your whole being on an intense desire that the need you have is lifted in an attitude that can last for hours, your whole consciousness concentrating on the one thing that you want God to do. The Holy Spirit will add to your intensive forcefulness any necessary words, that your earnest petition to God is presented to Him in a way that He will know just what you need. When you pray like this, you will get an answer from God, and your faith will grow.

By the way, 'righteousness' means 'obedience to God's commands'. What are His commands? The Bible is full of them, but boiled down to the fewest words, they are to love Jesus Christ with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love others, friends and enemies, as He loved you. He died for you; that is how He loved you.

Faith Tested Grows

No surgeon, though taking the greatest of care,
Ev'ry tendon, bone, and organ of man,
In section-slide for microscope prepare,
Will see the source of man's faith in God's plan.
Faith is trust; no cell in body or brain
Manufactures trust; only God provides,
And then it must be used, or quickly drain;
Faith untested, like strength, never abides.
You believe? Great! Now, be e'er more trusting;
Practice your faith; make it stronger each day;
Like a climber, climb, e'er upward thrusting,
For confidence in Jesus to never sway!
If the jump is wide, trust Jesus and leap;
He stays constant His promises to keep!

Paul told the believers in Galatia, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." (Galatians 5:6) All you have to do here in this life is to love others as Jesus loved you. Here's a small way to build your faith. The more you show love to others , the greater your faith grows. Suppose a friend has offended you in some way. What your human inclination to do in return is to get even by returning an insult to the friend, or maybe, just to grieve in silence. But doing either is not showing love as Jesus showed. Instead of following your usual course of action, swallow your pride and do something unusual and nice for your friend, like sending flowers, or a card, or inviting him to lunch. You will be surprised to find how your friend reacts. Your friendship will grow, and so will your trust in Jesus.

If doing a nice thing in return for offense by a friend is growing your love for others, imagine how it feels if you do the same for an 'enemy'. In every job or situation, even in church work, there is someone who hampers your feelings, or is a "thorn in the flesh". Out of the blue, do something nice for the 'enemy'. That is more difficult for you to do, and it will require greater faith to attempt, but in doing so you will be "heaping coals of fire on his head". In the Bible God says,

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
\If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
(Romans 12:20; Proverbs 25:21-22)

Doing nice things for friends is great for building faith; doing the same for 'enemies' is much greater, for it may turn one completely around. This is why Jesus told us to "turn the other cheek" when struck on one side.

Beware Of Deceivers

Like all the rest, I went to hear him speak,
The one who shook the world with ready wit;
Hear him, they said, if it's wisdom you seek,
For he's the best at showing how truths fit.
He said, "No truth is ever absolute;
Ev'ry fact changes in this universe;
Men grow in knowledge; each departs his root;
New truths are less likely to bring God's curse!"
I remembered God, Whose truth ne'er changes;
Wondered what He thought about this rash talk; Biblica
Heard His voice, "This deceiver deranges
With lies; deludes the weak; misguides their walk!"
Satan's cohorts are masters of the tongue;
They fill the hearts and minds of men with dung!

I thought of a lady named Marianne Williamson, author of a book called Miracles, and leader of a daily radio program sponsored by Oprah Winfrey. You can read a summary of each day's program by searching for OPRAH on the web; upon finding her Home Page, click the tab for Radio. Marianne Williamson gives the summary each day, and there is an archive of previous programs. The miracles she teaches listeners to find are couched in Biblical terminology, but the so-called 'truths' she boldly proclaims are false. If you have feelings of loneliness, you are advised to search within yourself until you find God, Who indwells every person. This internal God will advise you what action you need to take, which can be anything from dancing nude on Wall Street to advertising for dates on the internet. Whatever action you take is not sinful, because "God" told you to do it, and you know that He will not advise you to sin. Besides, there is no sin, for sin makes you feel guilty, and your loving "God" would not make anyone feel guilty.

This is an example of what is called postmodernism. This wrecking ball of society is the latest dominant philosophy embraced by the gurus of celebrity, and what it wrecks is 2000 years of truth taught by the Bible. The Bible is God's word, and His word is true. He is the source of truth. The Ten Commandments engraved in stone and given to Moses by God 3500 years ago are as true today as they were then, and you are supposed to feel guilty if you break them. The Bible is not a book of political correctness or therapeutic psychology. Repentance, required for a person to be saved, is supposed to be a guilty feeling, so that the person will not repeat the sin that caused it.

Death Set Aside

Dear Christian, don't fear that Satan will win
His futile war to scale God's throne sublime;
Though he still ravages the sons of men
On the earth, he's left with so little time.
Yes, he reigns here as prince of this world,
Ruler of the planet; God set him free;
He will fall when the Son of God is hurled
To bind him with chains for all the world to see!
Jesus Christ gave His life the world to re-win,
And greater still, He overcame the flesh,
That we escape the dread wages of sin.
Restored by grace heaven from hell afresh!
What a great change occurred, the day Christ died;
He dethroned the Beast, and set death aside!

Human reason has a hard time understanding why God let Lucifer free when he was defeated in his attempt to overthrow God in the war in heaven (see Revelation 12:7-10). God has all power; Lucifer was doomed to defeat before the war began; and having lost, the usual punishment would have been death, even from a merciful God.

The reason God did not kill the traitor angel, or imprison him for eternity, is the same reason He allowed him to rebel in the first place: It was God Himself that planned to use Lucifer as the stern test that men must survive in order to be saved to heaven. He put the evil in Lucifer's heart, in order to send him to earth as an implacable enemy of the men that God planned to create. God wants sincerity in the hearts of men that choose Him over Satan, and He wants it there by the unfettered free choice of the sincere believer. The choice is deliberately difficult; Satan offers men temporary (that is, only for their brief years of life on earth) enjoyment of their vilest lusts; God offers a life that requires a rigorous will power in denying oneself of the pleasures that men most desire. It's no wonder the Bible describes God's path as so narrow that only a few choose it, and Satan's road as so broad that many find it (see Matthew 7:13-14).

Therefore, Satan was sent to earth as "prince of the earth" to provide the toughest test as he possibly could for men. that only a few might pass it, yet they would be completely reliable to God. Satan's punishment is simply delayed for a time. Jesus came to earth as a man and passed Satan's test with flying colors, then died innocent of any crime against Rome or Israel; His death atoned for all men's sins, those who believe in Him, and those who do not. It's a shame so many failed God's test; their sins were atoned for, and dying for them was a waste of grace by Jesus Christ. I imagine He knows that. (Read about Satan's final punishment in Revelation 20:7-10)

Peter The Rock

The burly fisherman would've lived out his life
Netting the waters of old Galilee,
Unaware of supernatural strife,
Of fishing for men in a cosmic sea;
But a higher love than any he knew
Drew him relentlessly to the storm's eye,
That battered the days of Peter the Jew,
And called the Rock from brine to courts on high!
Is this he, hung inverted on the tree,
That trod the waves unwet in eager trust;
That taught preachers how pastors ought to be;
And set forever the measure of blust?
Yes, it is he, and see that you smirk not
At flaws; his ending's more than most have got!

When Jesus ascended to heaven after His resurrection, He left eleven apostles and many disciples to spread the word to the world. The leader of this uneducated polyglot group of men and women was Simon, who was given the name Peter by Christ., an ex-fisherman from Galilee. This man would never have become the Rock, strong, eloquent and determined, that he did become, without the teaching of Jesus and an influx of the Holy Spirit. From an impetuous bumbler to a powerfully effective advocate of Jesus Christ is a good description of the man that the poem above extols. Standing before a huge crowd, probably in the outer court of the temple, he preached the first sermon after those given by Jesus, and three thousand people converted to Christ. He quoted words from David, familiar to his listeners, to declare that the man they had recently crucified was Jesus the Son of God, now made the Lord and Christ:

"'Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.' When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the other apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'" (Acts 2:36-37)

Gone was the impetuousity that compelled him to jump out of the boat and walk on the water, only to shift his eyes from Christ and sink; gone was the bellicose nature that caused him to draw his sword and cut off the ear of the temple guard in a useless attempt at protecting Jesus. What the people at Pentecost heard was a mature man of faith that would lead Christianity from the backwaters of the Roman empire to spread across the world.

Lest We Ne'er Admit

Each of us has a place where secrets hide.
And none but we or God can enter there;
Though God's not welcome and would be denied,
Were the hiders brave enough so to dare.
If the buried truths ever come to light,
We would to all the world be exposed.
Our good report would shatter and take flight;
Families shamed; all our friends indisposed.
But God's our friend; He in secrecy woos;
Coaxing us to Him, that we all confess;
A private prayer need not be public news;
If He knows we're sorry for sins, He will bless!
We're glad God's able to see sins within,
Lest we ne'er admit, stay guilty of sin!

Paul, in writing to the Christians in Corinth, told them he was glad they were sorrowful for their sins, because the sorrow led to repentance and then they would receive salvation. In other words, he was telling all of us not to nurse or keep in secret past sins, but to feel sorry for them, admit them, and God would then forgive us. In the Bible at 2 Corinthians 7:10,

"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret..."

Of course, God can read all the secret places in any of us, and He knows every sin we have ever committed, but if we do not confess all our sins to Him, He will not forgive us for them. Repentance, or feeling sorry of things we have done and admitting them to God, is essential for salvation. I don't suggest that you should make public confessions to your family, friends, or church; but privately, in silent prayer, you need to admit your sins and be genuinely sorry for them.

When He Arose

Hail the Romans, road-builders for rabble;
Earth salutes the wonders you provided!
Rome near undid God's judgment on Babel;
Tongues the Latin language world-wide guided;
Nation joined nation that once were parted.
It was Rome who taught how wars should be fought;
Ditched from green that the dry could be watered;
Made coins with which all could be sold or bought!
All this Rome did, but it pales in the light
Of that deed before which all else is dross;
When irate Jews demanded in the night
That the Son of God be nailed to a cross!
Their world turned upside down when He arose
King of Jews, Romans, and of all His foes!

The greatest event in the history of the world was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death. He had been crucified on a Friday by the Romans under pressure of the leaders of the Jews. He was buried before nightfall in a tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea.

Jesus came out of the tomb alive early that Sunday morning. In so doing, He proved that any man who dies can live again, giving hope to all the world. He also paid the 'wages' of all the sins of men. Before leaving earth for heaven, He told His disciples:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." (Matthew 28:19)

That is the reason when I use the name 'God', I am thinking of Jesus, but I add the name 'Christ'; Jesus Christ is a divine name for God. Remember my blog, "Call Him Not Thief"?
You need to review those names for God occasionally to keep down confusion.

Earth's Just A Scene

How pathetic, when lost men grow bold,
Steering their ships of life o'er shallow shoals,
Deaf to warning bells advising them hold,
Confident, despite dangers to their souls.
It's no use sending witnesses to warn;
They hear the words, but meanings are shorn.
They think the messages are false alarm,
Their lives are thin cloths, about to be torn.
Tell them, please, before it's fore'er too late.
The threads they darn are merely puffs of smoke
That first balloon, then vanish, sealing fate,
With no fruit for God, He judges them broke.
Our unseen world is more real than our seen;
Their souls more real than flesh; earth's just a scene!

The time we live on earth is brief, like one scene in a five-act play. We are born of flesh; it begins dying as soon as it is born; life in the flesh is brief. With the confidence of youth, we never think of dying; turn around a time or two, and you are old, because your flesh quickly ages, then it dies, Thanks to the God that made you, you have a soul, not made of flesh; it lives forever. If this life on earth is all that you think you have, you are poor indeed; further, if you live like this life is all, you will be even more impoverished, because after the death of the flesh, you will resurrect with a new eternal body, but you will find yourself in an awful place. This life on earth is nothing; the life that follows is everything.

Love Doesn't Gossip

Whispered words are unworthy of belief,
Nor does accusation constitute fact;
He who falsely names is worse than a thief;
He steals repute, and hopes worse to exact!
What of his victim's deeds? Were all untrue?
Half-lies fit the namer, as well as the named;
Had the namer been chosen target, too,
His words would be twisted as the defamed.
O, brother, repent false witnessing's use,
Raising anger against your own brother,
Inciting men falsely to heap abuse,
Is harm to friend or foe, and any other!
False witness will Jesus never affirm;
Its use is among those Satan confirm!

Christians are commanded not to gossip; you must try to refrain from gossiping, and you will find that it is probably the hardest change you will have to make, to love as Jesus loved. Have you heard of God's Ten Commandments? They can be found in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 20. The Ninth Commandment, found in verse 16, states that you are not to give false witness about your neighbor. It applies to you and to every person; and 'false witness' means 'gossip'. Do you remember the game we played called 'Gossip'? The partygoers would make a circle; the first in line would whisper a phrase or sentence into the ear of the second person; that individual would whisper the same words into the ear of the third; and the process would continue around to the last member of the circle. That person would announce the phrase as it was told to him, to gales of laughter, because, invariably, not one word remained exactly as they were told by the first. The game is remarkably convincing of what happens to every rumor that passes through several people, and it invariably becomes more damning to the actor in the story.

The Bible is filled with scriptures that warn people to control their tongues. Not to do so is a sin. Here are scripture citations of less than one third of Bible passages concerning the harm done by tongue-waggers: Genesis 31:24; Leviticus 19:16; Numbers 23:8; Job 5:21; Psalm 12:2; Psalm 50:20; Psalm 59:12; Psalm 140:3; Proverbs 10:18; Ecclesiastes 10:20; Ezekiel 22:9; Romans 2:1; 1 Corinthians 13:6; James 3:3-6; and 1 Peter 3:18. Read a few of these, and you will have a new understanding of the horrors that gossiping brings on the world.

All people, believers and non-believers, love to gossip. If you are trying to love others as Jesus loved you, you must try to rid yourself of the sin of gossiping about anyone. Always say something good about everyone, or keep silent. Even harder, do not listen to gossip. It is better to remove the phone from your ear than to listen when a friend to saying anything negative about a joint acquaintance.

"The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell."
(James 3:6)

"They Feel No Pain"?

Babies lust-conceived by chance or neglect
Get no grave-plots, the millions slain unborn!
But let one of the calloused parents die,
And the pomp attending the passing rites
Proclaim him noble, grand, of high honor,
Four cubic yards of earth his fore'ermore!
How many cemeteries would it take
To consecrate all the slaughtered wee ones,
Murdered in abbatoirs of infamy,
Baal-clinics awash in innocent blood?
For each two that enter, but one departs,
The weakest made incinerator fuel!
"Yet," says one for solace, "they feel no pain;"
They feel no pain? Exchage places with one!

American society has endorsed abortion as legal, and many are being performed each day. Our society has also persuaded most young people that extramarital sex is morally permissible. As a result, there are more unmarried couples, including teenagers, having sex. Both of these mores (customs) together are creating more unwanted conceived babies. The parents of these unborn children wanted to enjoy the pleasure of sex and probably did not consider the risk of pregnancy. The result is that our nation is allowing an estimated 4000 babies a day to be killed before birth.

I am not unaware (or unscathed by) of the large number of teenage girls who find themselves inescapably in desperate situations---being pregnant and too immature, too economically incapable, and unmarried. Thus these young ladies are trapped and facing a terrible problem: Shall I keep this baby full term and give birth with insurmountable difficulties?, or, Shall I have a legal abortion? They have been untaught about the immorality of extramarital sex; in fact, their hours in morals teaching have been outnumbered 100 to 1 by the hours spent in front of television sets, whose weight of teaching is immoral; and the American government has been manipulated to make the cure---abortion---legal.

God commands the pregnant mother to give birth and take care of the baby, because abortion is murder, and one of the Ten Commandments states, "You shall not murder." I cannot solve the dilemma this command and the unfortunate circumstances that the young lady is in have brought about.

But I can advise you ladies that are fortunate enough not to have faced the problem. You can make sure you don't get pregnant. First, there is will power. Make the hard decision now that you will not allow your body to give in to importunate demands of the male you are with. Second, you can determine which day of every month that the 12-hour period during which you are fertile will occur, and not date that day, or even two or three days before and after. If you don't know how to determine that, then ask, ask, ask, read in hygiene books, look it up on the internet. Above all, find out. Even I know how to determine the 12-hour period and I am a great-grandfather. No matter how difficult this seems to be, it is a whole lot easier than what you will have to do in case of pregnancy.

Must God Apologize To Sodom?

Ho! Sodom! Your bones must with anger shake!
Gomorrah! Beneath your brimstone covers!
That God permits America break
His moral law; her men of men lovers;
Her women of women; As foul as thee!
And as of yet, His punishing fire restrain!
What new Abraham stays God's hand in plea?
For the righteous, He begs God's storm restrain!
His angels even now, warning of death,
Hide guarded behind the doors of new Lot,
Themselves unsafe from lusters' evil breath!
Whose daughters offered, their purity blot?
If America's sins are unreprised,
Should God to Sodom have apologized?

Paul said in Romans 1:26-27:

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another." (See also Genesis 18:16-33, 19:1-29)

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Put Him To The Test

Belief alone is not equal to faith;
It must grow by putting God to the test;
A thought in the mind is a fleeting wraith,
But belief tested is faith at its best.
Will God keep His promise? Test what He said;
If proved, your belief into faith will grow;
No doubts then will creep unseen to your head;
Your faith is sound, and to heaven you'll go!
Leap crest to foaming crest o'er restless wave,
Blind to risk, for Jesus keeps it at bay;
Stay fixed on the Lord for Whose cause you brave,
Eyes glued to Him, so that on top you'll stay!
A faith untested is a faith suspect;
Put Him to the test, your faith to perfect!

The simplest invitation that is customarily used to invite a person to choose God rather than Satan is to ask him to believe in Jesus as the Son of God. One example that I used in a recent blog is found in John 1:12; another is in John 3:16; and there are many more in the Bible.

But a big problem arises with the word 'believe'. Many people who consider themselves Christian and are convinced they will be welcomed into heaven when they die, may not be accepted by the Judge, Jesus Christ, who has the ability to read what is in the heart of a person. He is the only being that knows exactly what anyone believes, and therefore is the only being that is able to separate a true believer from one who is not. No preacher, deacon, or any other person who is a member of a church has the ability to judge who is truly Christian and who is not. In fact, church members are explicitly warned not to judge others.

The problem, then, is how do you know you are truly saved? The Bible uses the word 'faith' a lot, which implies more than a simple mental assent to Jesus. That is why I chose the key watchword 'to love as Jesus loved' for my blog, because if you love as Jesus loved, you have proved to Jesus Christ, He Who knows the secrets of your heart, and He Who will be your judge, that you love Him, and you will be saved for sure.'

Men Have Free Will

What were God's thoughts, as piece by angel piece,
He fashioned in beauty Lucifer fair?
Would this angel chief maintain heaven's peace?
He knew better; this one'd her fabric tear!
Fie! He knew it, ere the traitor was made!
Did He pause, and gaze, in sudden sorrow.
On this fairest of all, who'd men degrade?
No! He knows twists and turns of tomorrow,
And intended this vile cause of duress,
To test all men through evil to ensue!
He wants men free to choose Him under stress.
By their choice unbribed, His love to pursue!
God created it all, even foul sin;
That it, or Jesus, be the choice of men!

Revelation 12:7-9 describes the war that occurred in heaven, when Lucifer chose to rebel against God in order to wrest His throne away. This was the first sin (remember 'sin' means to disobey a commandment of God), because it took place in heaven before God created Adam and Eve. Ezekiel quotes God as saying that Lucifer's ill-fated attempt was rooted in his pride of beauty.

"Your heart became proud
on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom
because of your splendor.
So I threw you to the earth;
I made a spectacle of you before kings."
(Ezekiel 28:17)

The 'spectacle before kings' is not to occur until Jesus returns to earth and Satan (his name was changed from Lucifer to Satan when he was expelled from heaven) is chained after being defeated in the battle of Armageddon. God could have killed Satan after he rebelled, but He didn't; instead He expelled the traitor from heaven to earth and gave him freedom to do his utmost to tempt men to sin rather than to choose to live according to the commandments of God. He could have created man to automatically obey Him, but God doesn't want to be worshiped by automatons that don't have complete freedom of will. Therefore, Satan's power to wrest men away from being followers of God's law actually is provided by the very God he hates! Do you see the picture? You, a man or woman with perfect freedom of choice, are the prize over which Satan and God are battling; Satan is free to lie, get inside your head and tempt you to do the very things your body wants you to do---such as sexual lust, appetite for foods you cannot afford, alcohol, to drown out guilt feelings, etc.---while God merely provides the beauty of His creation in nature and His word contained in the Bible, which you may never read. The battle is one-sided, for sure, but the prize is eternal life in heaven, or eternal disaster in hell.

Every person has free will in making this most important of choices, and everyone must choose while living in this life on this earth! While Satan seems to have the upper hand, God's quiet invitation is found in John 1:12.

"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God."

The passage is speaking of Jesus who lived as a man for a little more than 33 years, and who was actually God Who came in the form of a man, so that all who believed that He was God and that He was resurrected from the dead after being crucified, could become adopted as children of God and receive eternal life in heaven after death. It is your choice to accept or reject.

For Which Truth?

They built their own god, the men made of clay;
Gave him attributes they admired the most;
Making sure he'd let them have their own way,
No matter what, and no matter the cost.
A clone of god was planted in each man,
To tell him what he ought, and ought not do;
That man's desires he must never amend,
And no sin or guilt to him could accrue.
Truth was disallowed ever to exist,
The opinion of each was set in stone,
Though unlike views were true and did subsist;
All must 'feel good'; neither is ever wrong.
If men created god, would all be deceived,
For which truth, god's or God's, must be believed?

God is the source of all truth. When science learns everything there is to learn about the world, it will coincide with God's truth of how it was made. Philosophy is hardly bound by the methods of science, and it changes from one great delusion for the next, for it is the product of men's thoughts devoid of the truths of the Bible. At this time, the world's dominating philosophy is postmodernism, the belief that truth is relative to the thoughts of each thinker. It is unfashionable for a person to make an unequivocal statement of truth, yet for a believer in Jesus Christ, who is grounded in the knowledge that everything in the Bible is true, it is difficult for him to accept conflicting statements as both being true.

Sigmund Freud is very influential in psychological therapy, which seems to be the main thought today---let all people conduct themselves as they think proper; there is no single 'best' way of acting, if every person is to be mentally and emotionally healthy. It is more popular to make statements that can be construed ecumenically than to make statements of absolute truth. For example, John 14:6 states that the only way for any person to be 'saved'---that is, to be resurrected after death and spend eternity in heaven with God---is through Jesus. That is a true statement of fact with no exceptions. To the postmodernist, however, all religious roads lead to heaven. Modern society, more and more, points to the Bible as too dogmatic and the cause of much mental disease that stems from guilt feelings.

However, believers find true happiness and no mental disease in following the teachings of Jesus. Heaven for us begins right here on earth, plus we have faith in the promises of the Bible for an afterlife that will be unimaginably better than this one. The Bible doesn't cause mental distress except for those persons who refuse to read it and follow Jesus in loving others.

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." (Proverbs 16:25)

Please don't fall for the lie. It will not solve this life's problems, and will lead to disaster in the hereafter. It is a lie of Satan intended to keep you from Jesus Christ.

Man's Brief Fling

Time turns all men's flesh back into the dust
And deigns not to pause at re-birth of clay,
But gnaws the crypt in which the man was thrust;
Then the stone which boasts of his living's way.
E'en the church, whose ivied walls heard him plea,
Heaves a sigh, and yields to creeper and moss;
Gibraltar sinks slowly under the sea,
Her long years of vigil forever lost.
Does aught remind of man's heroic deeds;
The wars; the loves, of billions of men?
Of his trials and trysts; his unmet needs;
Of his wars and ships; does any attend?
Nay! So bare the record of man's brief fling,
Heaven marks not his reign, nor does she sing!

We who live now and are entangled amid our lives; so zealous and active in our different quests for the various longed-for goals; so immersed in the never-ending excitement of the moment; that we cannot faintly imagine how God views our frantic comings and goings; our extreme excitements, anticipations, ecstasies, and grievings; we need to call a halt to everything; relax; meditate upon how He sees this earthly anthill.

"How then can a man be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less is man, who is but a maggot---a son of man, who is only a worm?" (Job 25:4-5)

Jonathan Edwards, a preacher of the 17th century in Massachusetts, preached a sermon named "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", which is remembered today as a sermon which so frightened people of God's wrath that they fainted, falling down in the pews and out of windows. Surely we don't need that kind of preaching to impress upon a people how they are thinking more highly of themselves than they ought and more lowly of their Creator and ultimate judge than they ought.

NASA sent a camera space probe (unmanned) to the outer reaches of the solar system, all the way to Pluto, which is so far from earth it took five and one-half years, at 186,000 miles per second, for any transmission it sent back to earth to reach us. The last picture it took and sent back, was of the earth itself at that distance away. The picture of earth showed just a speck, a pin-point so tiny that it was dwarfed by the other heavenly bodies nearby; remember, the picture was taken within our solar system, which, relatively speaking, is in our neighborhood. Imagine how insignificant our little planet would look to God, Who lives beyond the finite universe! Carl Sagan, the late atheistic scientist that popularized science with a television show, asked this question: If God wanted to show that He created the universe in order to provide a safe place for His creature man to inhabit, why didn't He put a 100-kilometer cross in orbit around the earth?"

"What is man, that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:4)

Gordon Hugenberger, senior pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, answered Carl Sagan's question by saying: "A 100-kilometer cross whirling around the earth in space would be too small for God. He is so much greater than that, He would have put a cross big enough to be seen from beyond the Milky Way." Then he said, "But God wants man to have faith, not absolute proof." What we must keep in mind is that God lived long before He created the universe by one small burst of energy; He is living now and intervening in our lives; and He will live eternally after the earth, man, and this universe is a distant memory.

So drop everything that you're doing; sit down; close your eyes; and meditate on how great God is and how small man is. Work on developing patience and the knowledge that God is on His throne; "all's right with the world'.

How Can Any Other Escape?

Adam, the touch of God was still so fresh,
The feel of His hands when you stood upright;
Where the rib was taken, sore ached your chest,
Lungs stinging yet as life His breath excite.
Of all men, you should have been the most fit,
Satan's tempting falsehood quick to reject.
How could you yield, dooming all to the pit,
When daily walks with God you could expect?
So soon your love of evil cut the tie;
Compelled God your descendants condemn;
Forced them to labor in sweat; and then die;
Enlarged the scope of hell; and heaven trim!
Foolish Adam! If you so soon forgot,
How can any other escape the plot?

God created the first man and the first woman. Whether they were made as a result of His command or by His own hands from the dust of the ground really doesn't matter.

"the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7)

After man was made and before the woman was made, God gave the man some commands; he was to do certain things, and he was not to do one thing.

"And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.'" (Genesis 2:16-17)

Surely Adam and Eve must have talked about God's command that the fruit of one tree was not to be eaten. Anyhow, Satan tempted Eve first, and she yielded to temptation; then she encouraged Adam, who was beside her all the time, and he followed suit. Before they sinned, they had no knowledge of good and evil, and had lived nude; as soon as they ate the forbidden fruit, they saw that they were naked.

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden." (Genesis 3:8)

God hates sin (disobedience). When Adam and Eve disobeyed, He cast them out of the garden, and they had to work for their food the rest of their lives. From that terrible moment on, there would be no walking and talking with God by any human being. All men would die physically and spiritually. Jesus had to come to earth to live and be crucified to pay for the sins of men. To regain fellowship with God, men have to accept Jesus as their Lord and love others as He loved us.

Wearing Our Ephesian Armor

Sin invites us all of its wares partake,
Each day and each hour that our lives prevail;
None is able to reject the mistake;
All of us sin, thus at times all do fail.
We should all wear our Ephesian armor,
To help us stand firm in heat of the day.
Fate does not protect, or lucky karma,
From the devil's arrows that come your way.
You need not fall, for God can keep you strong,
At least enough your redemption protect;
No tenpting's so great to force doing wrong,
If His path of escape you will select.
Ask Him to equip you for sin's defense,
So when it comes, you can withstand offense.

To love as Jesus loved, you need to avoid sin if you can; He gave us armor to help us do that. This equipment is listed in the letter Paul wrote to the Christians who were members of the church he began at the city of Ephesus, located in present-day Turkey.
That's where the phrase "Ephesian armor" comes from that I used in the poem above.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, agaqinst the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breast-plate of righteousness in place, and your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.' (Ephesians 6:10-18)

Please read this again. Isn't it beautiful? God has provided these things as armor for Christians in the spiritual (not physical) warfare against the fallen angels that swarm around us with temptations. There is truth: God's Bible is all true. There is righteousness: Righteousness comes from obeying God and loving others. There is faith: Trust enough to love like Jesus loved. There is salvation: The knowledge that if we love like Jesus loved, we will be alive again and be with Him for eternity. There is the Bible: The word of God is revealed in the pages of the Bible, and it is sharper than any two-edged sword.

NOTE: To you who are learning to love like Jesus loved---Look in my blog archive to find Call Him Not Thief. The commentary lists many names of Jesus you will need to know to understand the scriptures in the Bible. It is a vital tool for you. WJBC