Sunday, July 12, 2020

I am not in this with you!

This was written to post on Facebook so please keep that in mind as you read it. I have been doing my very best to stay off Facebook for a couple of weeks now. I have periodically posted a few things and come on my timeline for brief spans of time and each time I remind myself that I really don’t want to be on here.
Why not?
1) Facebook is censoring things they don’t agree with. They are allowing only the agenda they want pushed to be shared although it does seem like some things are slipping past the demons that are guarding the Facebook gates.
2) it serves no purpose. I can share my opinions on here all day long but all I’m doing is running my social media mouth for little to no purpose. Most of the people I care most about never even go on Facebook and of the ones that do, most of them don’t see what I post. Nothing I say or do on here will ever change anything but that same amount of time spent interacting with my family will pay big rewards. Friendships on Facebook are nothing but shams. I spend massive amounts of time investing me into others on Facebook over the course of a year only to have superficial friendships or passing conversations with strangers. That same time is better invested elsewhere.
3) because Facebook stands for things that I do not I am throwing my lot in with them by partaking of their services.
All that said, I’m sure I missed a few reasons but hopefully anyone reading this gets the gist. I refuse to use Facebook to alienate those that hold different views than I do, trust me I can do that well enough on my own in real life, because to do so feeds the beast of social media and I am a firm believer that it is one of the worst tools to ever come about. This tool, long lauded for keeping people in touch, has made people think more highly of themselves than they ought. But when that same tool self proclaimed themselves to be the ruler and decider of whether or not something is true or misleading, whether or not it’s profitable or such nonsense that the public should not be given the option of reading it for themselves if they so chose...THEY ARE STEALING YOUR RIGHT TO THINK. The demons at the Facebook gate are practicing mind control.
Our American rights and freedoms are being systematically taken away and even when the power that be witch doctors in charge of the country say one thing the demons running the smaller areas are saying another. We have a great case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Their drive for power has consumed them and our lives are no longer safe in their hands.
This holds true not only on Facebook but also in other internet form and forums, in businesses, in cities, in each respective state and the nation as a whole. Just as I was labeled homophobe because I stand against that sin, I am now labeled entitled because I have the God given, American constitution supported, right to be able to breathe without obstruction and the mentality to insist on enforcing my right. So I’m now entitled. So be it. Consider me entitled but give me fresh air.
They have brainwashed America into thinking “we are all in this together”.
NO!!!!
I am not in this insanity with you.
I am not in facebooks insanity of thinking they are the judge of what is fact or misinformation. A fairly new term being thrown about, by the way. Pre 2020, when was the last time you heard the masses use the word misinformation?
I am not in Walmart’s insanity of making shopping more confusing and harder to do by encouraging mask wearing, which they will gladly sell you a box of for the average cost of 1.00 per one time use mask, or of having one way shopping. I go the wrong way on one way aisles. Not out of defiance but because I’m not watching the floor when I shop. Nor am I looking for little signs tucked at the edges of the shelving indicating the traffic pattern. I am shopping with the intent to get what I need and get out, not out of fear of getting sick but because I don’t generally enjoy spending lots of time in Walmart. I don’t consider Walmart to be a fun hobby. So I am not leisurely roaming the store watching signs on the floor that tell me which way I can and cannot go.
I am not in the insanity of believing America doesn’t have enough coins. Really? How stupid are we? We may need more people to break into their piggy banks and coin jars and put coins back into circulation, we may need to encourage people to pay with cash instead of cards to get coins moving again, but we are not running low on coins. Where are they going to try to convince us they went? Did coins magically start melting away? Do they rot after so many days of not using them? WHERE are all the American coins that we had pre 2020? Those coins filtered through our banks and government hands...where are they now?
I am not in the insanity of believing that COVID is so deadly that it caused all this other nonesense. It is a virus. It will act like a virus. Had the government and their witch doctors reported factual information, not allowed any government bailouts to anyone, and continued to count all deaths as they normally are with an added slot for those that truly died of covid, sure, I would be right there with you. After all, I was social distancing and sanitizing long before it was cool. I have avoided the flu like the plague for going on 20 years now. I do not want any virus. But now we have witch doctors being put in guard of the lives of the masses, these so called doctors get that title because they have been trained in the pharmacy indoctrination system of medical school. They are greedy and power hungry. They cannot tell the difference in male and female. Their god is science and money and they serve their own egos. They do not care if I live or die. They do not care if my loved ones live or die.
I am not in the insanity of the mask mob. I can read and do research, although it’s getting much harder to do because the internet is now so censored you can barely find anything that doesn’t promote the furthering of the current agenda. Pre covid there were lots of doctors and scientist published articles on how masks don’t stop viruses and the toll wearing them for long periods takes on your health. Today, we have only the agenda supported information on the safety of masks to research unless we are very persistent. States that were acting out of some form of common sense are now mandating masks. We must now wear them, not by due process of American law but by dictates of the tyrants drunk on their own power. Someone said the translators of the BIble mistranslated something in Revelation. It’s not the mark of the beast, it’s the mask of the beast. I sure hope they were wrong but here we are. The masses are “in this together” and must now wear their face mark, I mean, mask to buy or sell, to mingle with others, to...live. Some of the crazies are even suggesting you must wear them at home.
I am not in this with you. I will not be joining you in this. I must put up with your insanity and find a way to go about my life in your insanity driven mandates but...
I AM NOT IN THIS WITH YOU!

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Truth

Years ago I was accused of being a cult with my husband, as in someone told me that my husband and I were a cult. I laughed at the very idea of such. I have heard of cults for the better part of all my life. I recall watching movies about true life cults as a kid. I remember news stories, often horrific, about cults involving mass murder, either inside the cult or by the government trying to stop the cult. I even remember when I discovered the Amish, that I greatly admired at the time, were a cult. To say I was shocked to apply the term cult to the Amish was an understatement. To say I was beyond shocked to hear that my husband and I, two measly people, were a cult was dumbfounding.

I was floored. 

How could two people be considered a cult. It just didn't make sense. I thought maybe being accused of being a cult was the direct result of what my husband and I believed. That made sense. Not. But...okay. We hold to Christian beliefs that aren't exactly the same as mainstream christian beliefs. So...maybe.

I looked up the definition of what a cult was an discovered that the definition no longer matched what I had always been taught a cult was. According to modern day definition a cult is two or more people. I don't recall the full definition but I do recall that it said 'two' people. By that definition, my husband and I were a cult. 

Okay. I truly don't care. I've been called all sorts of names in my lifetime. Names truly don't bother me. You can call me what you want. I was accused of being a germophobe when it wasn't the socially accepted thing to want sick people to keep their distance. Now...well, post Covid 19...I've had people tell me that I already know how to social distance and prevent germs because I've been doing it forever. Yep. Now my germophobe tendencies are the 'in' thing and I guess that makes me one of the cool kids. I've been called other names for sticking to what I believe. For not rolling over for the current views on things. I've been labeled as all sorts of things, even tossed into a political party that I truly am not in support of, simply because I hold to some of the same fundamental beliefs they do.

Whatever.

I never cared for that term...whatever. It's so rude. So disrespectful. I have used it before, though, and I imagine I will use it again. Whatever. Toss me into whatever pool you want to, label me whatever you want to. I'm not playing this game.

And so...I am a member of a cult. We are a hardcore cult. We have strict rules. Membership is closed. It is impossible to join the cult I'm a part of. This cult is friendly to all, but will adopt no new members. We will talk to outsiders, help them, encourage them, but we do not welcome them inside the membership of this cult.

It's called...marriage. 

And in my marriage, my husband and I have similar views. Oh, we see plenty of things differently but in the end we believe enough of the same things that we are one and the same and we are, but definiton, as of a few years ago, a cult.

That was my first experience with the new twisting of words. That word taught me that I can no longer assume I know what someone means when they use a word. I looked up the definition of cult today and see that it has changed again from what I read just a few years ago. 

Okay.

Confusing. Useless. Why in the world do 'they', whoever 'they' are, want to change definitions of words. Isn't the very nature of a culture dependent on it's ability to understand others in that culture? My sister tells me that if I go to England and tell someone I want to buy a pair of pants I will be directed to the underwear department because the word pants in England means underwear. 

Our ability to function in a given society is dependent upon our knowing and understanding the language. The American language has been sliding downhill rapidly for a number of years. I used to think it was due to texting and other electronic conversing. It's so much easier to write out 'y' than 'why' or 'vacay' than 'vacation', right? I don't happen to think so but I seem to be in the minority. I also happen to like to write. There is something...almost magical...in the ability to use words to paint a picture. Like the stroke of an artists paintbrush, swish, I put words on paper or screen and a story appears. I can use words to share my ideas.

Even Scripture was given in...words.

And they are powerful. I recently had someone telling me they were reading from a new living translation Bible. Because I have never read one of these versions of the Bible I happily paid nearly 2.00 to get one when I found it at the thrift store. I brought it home and flipped to familiar passages. It was...

Lacking.

There was Scripture but it lacked the umph, the impact, that it should have had. If I had no other Bible I would use this translation. I actually chose to read from it last night rather than from any of my other Bible versions, meaning I chose it over the KJV, ESV, NIV, NKJV, Geneva, or the NASB. I did so for a reason though. I wanted to get a feel for how the text flowed. I wanted to see if this was the only Bible I had, would it be sufficient. It would. There is Truth there, plainly. It's just a very weak, watered down version. It lacks the umph that other versions have. 

And guess what...the weakness of the book comes through not because of the quality of the paper or the feel of the cover. I actually really like the way this Bible feels in the hand, so much so that when the time comes to part with it, and that time will come, I will have a hard time parting ways with it because I enjoy the feel of holding it. No, the weakness in this Bible isn't due to any quality of makemanship, it's purely due to the words on the pages. Words that have been changed, altered, watered down to make this less...impactful. Maybe it's easier to understand for some, but if one chooses this version they will get a changed version that has all the components but those components have less quality than if they had chosen a different version.

Simply put...words matter.

Words are powerful. They have the capacity to heal or destroy. They can build up or tear down. They can save or kill. They can teach or confuse.

And the ability to understand how another uses a word can pull people together or push them apart. 

There should be some sort of absolute standard for words. X means X and there is no changing that. 1 +1=2. It doesn't matter how many different times you have one item and you add one more item to it...you will always have two in the end. It doesn't matter if I have one apple and add one more apple, or if I have one orange and add one more orange, or even if I have one apple and add one orange...in the end I will have two items. If I have one child and add one more child to the mix...I will have two children. It doesn't matter if they are my children, the neighbors children or random kids off the street, one child plus one child will always be two children. It's simple math and everyone knows that math is absolute. It cannot be changed.

Why then do we allow words to be changed? I had a young person come to me once carrying a book they were reading. The book was written many, many years ago and the people in the book were going to a 'gay party'. The young person was very confused and it was obvious to see that our modern definition of 'gay' was coloring their understanding of the story. 

The word was the same but the context and definition had been changed.

My husband and I spent many, many, many hours studying Scripture and the roles, according to Scripture, for teachers and preachers. We eventually realized that time and changes to definitions of words were causing some confusion on understanding God's Word as it was written. There was, we concluded and agenda behind the translating of Scripture today. The word church now means a physical building where people professing Christ are supposed to gather. Our modern world believes that to be a Christian means one must attend just such a building. It goes further than that though because one must also support said church and 'here' are the verses to back it up. But...what happens when one applies a bit of history to Scripture? What happens when one considers that there were no church buildings when the Bible was being written?

Words matter.

Definitions define one's understanding of what someone is saying. Truth is, or should be absolute. And the truth of a definition of a word should be as simple as one plus one equals two.

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is." — Winston Churchill


What then is truth? And where can we find it? When one has the ability to change a word, it's like giving them a magic wand to wave around. Poof! There goes whatever it is they don't like and poof, here is the new version. One plus one no longer has to equal two because this person decided that one and one can be three or five or 368. The absolute of something is only a sure thing so long as it is unchangeable. 

I need to know that when I am following a map, north is north and south is south. If someone somewhere has decided it would be better to move north to east and south to west and we will just get rid of east and west altogether and replace them with ice and soda...well, I hope you see how confusing that is. Is north now east? Or has east simply been renamed north? Is soda east and which way do I go to get to north east? Should I take the route that goes soda north? Soda east? or North Soda? And where does ice come in? I need to go north east to get to a road that runs south west so I guess that new map means I need to travel the route of a north south ice soda, please. 

Yeah.

Change an absolute and it might make sense in a generation or two, when the new definition is an absolute and everyone understands the meaning of the word, but in the process of changing it there is nothing but confusion. One must have an unchangeable definition of something for all people involved to understand what is happening and for the rules of society to prevail and to make sense, never mind the rules of God and where they should come in. 

When I call the doctors office for directions I need them to tell me to go north on hwy 2 until I get to hwy 4, then go east for four miles. When I come to the big blue barn I need to turn left and go three blocks to the south. The hospital will be on the northeast corner and I should park in the west parking lot.

Okay. That's a bit confusing but I understand what it means because north is north and south is south. I don't have to try to figure out if they are talking about the north as I have always known it or the north as it is now being reworded.

Homosexual 'marriage' redefined marriage. Dictionaries once listed marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Who knows what the definition is now. I'm afraid to look. It used to be that if I read something where someone said, 'my wife', I knew immediately that the writer was a man and that he was married. Now...who knows. My wife could be written by a man or a woman.

Truth is only truth so long as it is absolute.

The Truth of God never changes. Man may change it, man may weaken or redefine it, but it is only changed in man's mind, not God's. 

The world is, or has, changed it's definition of marriage. No longer can people know whether a speaker is male or female simply because they say, 'my wife', but God's definition of marriage has not changed. God defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. 


Where I found truth, there found I my God, who is the truth itself. — Augustine


God must be the beginning and ending of Truth. He is the one that defines what truth is. He defines the absolutes of life. No matter how much I may want to give my child an alligator for a pet and expect said alligator to want to be with my child 24/7, to be sweet and snuggly with my child, to watch over my child and protect it, I cannot change the nature of the alligator. I cannot erase the fact that God ingrained into alligators the need to eat meat in the form of things smaller than they are. I can wrap that alligator up all nice and sweet, put a bow on it, call it my toddlers security blanket but the alligator is not going to be my child's friend. Ever. They are natural enemies.

God is Truth. He is the absolute. He is the alpha and the omega. He is the beginning of this world and He is the end of it. He literally spoke the earth into being. He sends the weather, illnesses, sunshine, shadows, blessings and curses.

If man were given that magic wand to wave about and change the world at will, what confusion we would live in. Up is only up so long as everyone understands that up is up. The minute Johnny is allowed to change up to down, and Susie is told she can change up to sideways, and poor Willie changes up to puppy...well, gone is any kind of normal and nothing but confusion reigns. But if Johnny, Susie, and Willie are corrected on what up means, if they are given the definition of up as truth that is unchangeable...calm will reappear. Understanding dawns on all and even if Johnny, Susies, and Willie whine and complain they are told that one can't change the absolutes, that one plus one will always be two and up will always be up, then and only then does anything make sense.

God confused nations of people at the tower of babel. Where men had been working together, accomplishing, or trying to accomplish, something together, one might even say they were all working together for the greater good, or at least for what they thought was the greater good, in unison, and then...BAM...God sent confusion. He made them where they no longer understood one another.

I can imagine what life might have been on the first day of confusion. Men that had been amicably working together up till the day of confusion all of a sudden no longer knew what to do. They went to work that morning as normal. This one cut down trees, that one dug up rocks, another mixed cement, three more started the masonry work...they did what they had been doing all along, only when the tree cutter tried to tell the board maker that there were no more straight trees, or that these trees were diseased, or that they would have to go further away to find trees or...whatever they might have said, the board maker no longer understood them.  The poor tree cutter was speaking plain as day. He was saying exactly the same things he had always said. He may have scratched his head in confusion when the board maker didn't understand. Maybe he grabbed the board makers arm as the man tried to get a log off a pile of diseased trees that needed to be burned. Still, the board maker didn't understand, he was getting frustrated with the tree cutter.

While that was going on there, the masons were getting flustered with the concrete makers because the concrete needed more mud and less water and the concrete makers were adding more water and less mud. The stones weren't sticking and the men on the scaffolding up high were yelling at the men on the ground to watch out only to have the men on the ground step closer to the tower to try and steady it for the men on the scaffolding.

And all chaos broke lose.

Society only thrives when everyone understands what is expected and when new ideas can be presented so that all can understand them.

The dictionary can no longer be depended on to give the truth of a definition of a word. Just as the definition of the word cult was changed so that it was no longer what I understood the word to mean, and just as the definition of marriage has no doubt changed in the pages of modern dictionaries... I saw an article today, I have no idea how old it was, that said a woman petitioned Merriam Webster to change the defintion of racism. She wanted the defintion to reflect the new meaning of the word...and she won. The dictionary complied with her request.

Once upon a time that same dictionary defined truth as something with an absolute meaning, a meaning that everyone understood and knew to be true.  Truth was defined as "the body of true statements and propositions. Truth is the 'state of being the case.'" There was, quite simply, a one plus one equals two kind of understanding to what truth was. It was immovable. Unchanging. Truth is truth. Who really needs a definition for the truth? There is truth and there is...untruth. What isn't true is untrue or a lie, it's either true or false, real or imagined. Here is the line of truth, either you tell the truth or you tell lies. Sure, there were gray areas, blue is always blue except when you add enough green to it to turn it into blue green, then it is a mix of the two and might be seen either as blue or as green, but for the most part there was no wishy washy middle ground. Truth was...is...absolute.

Truth cannot be changed by the whim of an individual or a group of individuals. Truth is defined by something...Someone...outside time and place. Truth is much bigger than oneself.



Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. John Adams

Today, more and more people define things based off what they want them to be. Gone are the days when truth prevailed and a person used common sense, this is this way because it is the way it is and no matter how much I might wish to change it, it will always be that way. That is common sense.

We have medical professionals trying to tell us that masks are safe and necessary to stop a virus when studies have been done in times past that show that not only do masks not stop viruses but that they cause other health issues. Never mind all that though because I want masks to keep me safe so everyone wear one because then we will all be safe together.

Um, no.

You and I won't be safe together. I'm not safe when I put on a mask because I have lung issues that cause me to almost immediately have trouble breathing when I put anything over my nose and mouth.

The new definition of mask safety doesn't negate my health issues nor does it negate all the studies done prior to this time when the truth on masks is being rewritten.

I don't mean to use the current events of this covid virus as an example but it is simply one thing in a line of issues where truth is being erased for the sake of those trying to rewrite it into what they want it to be.

I'm not 'entitled' by the true definition, the historical definition, the ages old definition, of the word, simply because I do not believe others should be allowed to force me to wear a mask. I do, however, understand how the word entitled is being changed to promote an untruth that is supported by the new definition of the word 'entitled'.

Okay, enough current events and enough of my thoughts on them. There is nothing but crazy happening in all this covid stuff no matter which side of it a person is on. I saw something the other day that said 2020 is the new crazy, that people will say 'he went 2020 on me' and it make perfect sense. Yes, because that, too, is a new definition.

My husband used to like to watch videos by a man that went out and questioned people on what the truth was to them, what right and wrong was to them. I don't think I will ever forget one conversation that man had with a twenty something man. He asked the younger man if something was right or wrong and the younger man told him, 'if it's wrong for you than it is wrong but if it's right for me than it's right.' He further explained something to the effect of nothing is ever right or wrong as a whole but it is right or wrong based on whether or not it is right or wrong for the individual.


"In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute." — Francis Schaeffer

We have reached the point where this line of thinking permeates the entire world, it would seem. I've been conversing with someone that has limited access to christian literature and has been reading what is available. This person told me that a good deal of what is being written is coming from California and seems to be especially erroneous to Scripture even though they claim to be christians. 

This modern mindset is growing so prevalent that even the so-called christians are growing more and more...out there...in their beliefs. It used to be that society as a whole understand and accepted truth as truth and they followed rules and lived within a mindset that seemed to be governed by God's laws even if they didn't believe in God. An unbeliever might have rejected God and His laws, may have wallowed in their sins, might have partaken of things against Scripture but for the most part they did so behind closed doors or even in their own minds because those things weren't tolerated in society. There was a time that people in America were tossed into institutions for holding to those sorts of sins that were socially unacceptable and it was God's laws that laid the foundation for what was and was not acceptable.

Nowadays, though, more and more, even those professing Christ toss aside God's laws when His laws no longer support their sins. They twist His laws or toss them out completely when their ways come up against His ways. 

 My husband said it well yesterday, he said that it used to be that professing christians were enjoyable to talk to, that even if they were off on some of their Scripture or their doctrines were different, they were often still edifying to talk to. That is growing less and less these days.

I agree wholeheartedly with him on that. I know several professing christians and it's getting harder and harder to talk to them. It's getting to the point where I must either take a firm stance, avoid certain subjects or do some sort of fancy word dance to talk to them. It is the same exact situation I find myself in when I talk to those that do not believe in God, let alone Christ, at all.

Truth is no longer Truth even for those that profess Christ. Churches have bowed down to the alter of money and they have rewritten their rules and requirements, their expectations, to cater to the public and to pull people in their doors. Truth has slowly faded from the hearts of most that profess Christ. They have let it sift through their fingers like playdough, squeezing it into different shapes to transform it into whatever the people of the time want it to be. Truth...what is truth?

"What is truth?" (John 18:38) Even Pontius Pilot  asked that very question before sending Christ to be crucified. Why would a man in Pontius' position need to even ask such a question? Christ remained silent when asked that then but he answered in John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 

Christ, by His own words, is Truth.

Ones beliefs determine what they are. My absolutes make up the majority of who and what I am. I cannot change what I was born as or into. That is truth. I was born on a certain day, in a certain year. That is truth. The sum of what I am is defined by the truths of what I am and of the things I hold as truth.

My entire life I have believed in Christ. Jesus was a truth for me long before I understood what truth was. I was raised to believe in Jesus but I don't recall ever being told to do something or not do it based on whether or not God allowed it. I don't remember ever being referred to the ten commandments for what is right or wrong. I knew lying was wrong but don't recall lying ever being a 'wrong' in our family so long as one didn't lie so much that others never knew when to believe them.

And yet...Christ was a truth in my life for...forever. He simply was. I learned His truth's along the way, little by little. My best friend taught me that lying was wrong. She showed me in Scripture that it was wrong. That friend, a Roman Catholic now, was a light in my childhood, showing me things I never learned in my own family. She led me to many truths, not the least of which was that Jesus was to be most important in our lives.

And so...that one great Truth guided me my whole life. My truth in life now is based on Christ. My truth is His word. As I sat reading that watered down version of Scripture last night, I felt it bathing my soul.

To be truthful is to tell the truth and yet our society no longer seems to know what the truth is. North is now soda because truth has been tossed aside for 'feelings' and what doesn't offend anyone. I know a self professing pagan. This person once told me that in their religion all beliefs are what you want them to be. This person told me that they don't have a religious book similar to the Bible because no such book exists. For a pagan to have such a book they would have to write it themselves and it would only be aplicable to the person that wrote it because the next pagan might hold to different beliefs.

In other words there is no truth in their religion. Truth is what they want it to be.

Christ said, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth". John 17:17. 

What is truth according to Christ? He said He was truth and He also said 'your word' meaning the Scriptures are truth. There is truth in a nutshell. Paul said, 'I have decided to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified'. There is Truth. 

Christ.

When one takes Christ out of truth...confusion reigns. 

The absolutes are gone and you are left only with what man deems to be truth.

...and ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).

What truth is it that frees us all? Is it the confusion of the truth in our own minds when our minds and hearts are their own gods? Can your truth be the same as my truth when neither of us have a guiding principle, not even a dictionary definition, for what truth means?

Time changes much and yet God stays the same. Death came to my life this winter. Nearly six months later I stood in front of a double grave, my mother in one spot, my grandmother in the other. They had been gone for months but standing there, looking at their graves, seeing what is and isn't left of them anymore, reminded me of just how much this world does change. In the same cemetary lay my granmothers parents. I thought of how there is little left of my great grandmother. There are few people left on earth that remember her and their are few of her earthly treasures still known.

I have stories in my head of my mothers mother and even of her grandparents and great grandmother. I own a few quilts made by my great and great great grandmothers. But...for all intents and purposes time changed, it kept going, and here we are more than six months after my mothers death when only her memory remains along with a selection of things that she once owned.

The world has forgotten her.

Her thoughts and opinions no longer matter. What she percieved as right and wrong do not matter. We are here for a time and then gone. A vapor. Fools who live in this fallen world, stumbling along, until 'this very night your life will be required of you', just like the man in Scripture that tore down his barn to build a bigger one so that he might store more of his earthly treasures.

And yet, day by day, little by little, definition by definition, one word at a time, one mindset at a time, people are attempting to rewrite truth and change it into what they think it is. The very people who are just as much a vapor as all the rest of us. The very people who will fade away and leave nothing but memories of themselves, memories that will be gone within a generation or two. There is little that lingers throughout time. Little, except for God and His truth.

The guiding light in a world turned topsy turvy.

The truth is not longer good enough. We need new truth, better truth, more educated truth. I've been accused of being ignorant of facts because I don't buy into the liberal mindset of what the facts are. I've been told I won't consider things with an open mind but...

Who defines an open mind? Who gets to define ignorance?

It appears to be that America is being ripped in two by two different political parties but if one looks deeper we can see the Truth of Scripture in:

Ephesians 6:12, KJV: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."


Even the changing of words is an evil that permeates so much. I cannot simply pick up any book titled 'Bible' and be sure that I am getting truth. Some are so twisted as to teach an entire different religion than what the holy Scriptures teach. Others have been changed to a degree but Truth remains.

I can no longer buy a dictionary and accept the words within it because 'they' have fallen prey to the idea that truth must change and so the definition of words must change along with how they are being used in any given society.

And more and more there is a mindset that anything is good so long as it furthers one persons version of what truth is. All the better if there are groups of people that see truth the same way so that they can band together.

I can't say as I blame them. Historically, even Christians have done the same. We stand on Truth based on the words in Scripture. He are separated from friend and foe, loved ones and enemies, based on our faith in Christ. He truly is a sword that separates.

There have always been groups of people holding to the same ideas and ideologies that banded together and became, I suppose, cults. The pilgrims left their countries to move to a whole new land so that they might have the freedom to worship Christ. In the dark ages their were groups of people that lived secluded from others so that they could worship Christ. Even cults, true cults, today, live as such so that they might worship in their own way, without interference from others that hold differing views as they do.

They all have their version of what truth is.

More and more I find myself feeling sorry for those that create their own truth. How sad it must be to live within a depraved mind that seeks for something, that creates it's own rules, that lives by it's own emotions of what right and wrong, even truth are.

How does one even go about figuring out what truth is without some sort of compass that tells them what truth is?

We might view these people as enemies, and indeed they are, but...oh, these poor, pitiful, enemies. They no more chose their path than I did. How does one come by depraved doctrines that teach and promote, even push, bully, and legalize, all manner of untruths as truth? How does one adopt the idea that abortion gives dignity to all? How does one feel sorry for a criminal while demonizing all people wearing a badge?

And those are just a few of the examples that I could give.

Where is the line for truth verses their own reality? Where is the line between right and wrong? Why is it okay to kill an unborn baby but not a person of a certain age? Where is the line? And how do they come by it?

Why can mother Amy kill her unborn baby, a living, soon to be breathing, person, up until she's 20 weeks pregnant, while mother Janie can kill hers right up until it is born, alive and breathing, at nine months pregnant? Why can unborn babies be killed, even the healthy ones, while born babies, even the ones with critical, incompatable with life, conditions cannot?

I'm not advocating for killing any baby, anyone, I'm asking why the people that push one thing as freedom of choice fail to see that it is only freedom of choice for the person that falls within their guidelines of what truth is. IF truth for them says a baby shouldn't be killed after 20 weeks gestation, that becomes truth and defines life for others. Others that may see no harm in killing a baby at nine months gestation, or one at two years old if said mother no longer wants the child. Why can someone go to prison for murder if they cause the death of an unborn child if that child belongs to a mother that wants the baby while in the same place the mother can kill that child, with no repercussions, if she chooses to do so.

Where is the line of truth there? Who defines it and why does one persons truth get to rule when it goes against anothers truth?

Why do some professing christians, even entire churches, accept homosexuality even though the Bible they hold in their hands clearly says its sin?

Why do the same churches open their arms and hearts to women that have had abortions even though the Bible they claim to follow says it's murder?

Whose truth prevails even among the professing christians?


Ever see someone react to being told God's truth when they didn't follow Christ? It's not pretty. Even those that profess Christ will often have a quick answer and backlash. We all fall off the wagon from time to time. Even the born again believers, the elect, are full of sin. Some things take hold from time to time and move us away from Christ. It is as though it is a constant battle, and it is, for our hearts and minds, our very souls, to stay pure and focused on Christ. 

I ache and hurt for the lost people that are assigned to live in a depraved mind and then face an eternity of hell for nothing more than being born the person God chose them to be. They are sinners. We all are. No one deservers heaven. No one deserves Christ. But for some reason there are some that are given that Gift while others are left to do nothing but wallow in their depravity and try to reason out truth based on what that depravity sees.

These poor people, these poor hurting souls. They ache and they search, they cry and they need, and yet they are hardened against the very thing that could save them. Their minds are darkened so that they cannot see the light. They struggle through life even when they think life is easy. Their is something so...empty...in their lives that they are always seeking and never finding.

And somewhere in all that the evil rears it's ugly head. They desire ever more of whatever it is that catches their fancy. They push evil ideas because they sound promising and helpful.

I heard an announcement on a loudspeaker in a store just a few days ago. It promoted the wearing of masks and said, ''spread love, not germs''.  More and more, I believe people truly think that's what they are doing. They are trying hard to offer love and acceptance, at least they think they are, according to their truth. And yet the evil in them cannot keep the purest intention pure. It always goes astray. They offer the wrong kind of love. They reject the Truth even in it's most basic sense.

They try and they try. They struggle and they reach. They change words because we need to reflect the 'real' truth of something. They change definition and society because those that don't see how mistreated or how wrong others are are ignorant and we must get beyond that.

Young people think old people are stupid for holding to the old ways and they fail to see that those old ways are usually at somewhat based on Christs ways.

I once saw something that said that the best way to get people to your side is to change something they love into something you want. So satan became santa by simply changing the spelling. This was written by devil worshippers. Truth becomes truth when one changes the definition of words, I suppose. No longer is a cult what I once thought it was. Now it means something different. Words have changed meanings to promote what others want them to mean rather than holding to the truth of what they are.

And somehow in the midst of all this mixup the next generation must figure out which side of truth they are on.

Even when Truth is veiled and appears ever changing.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Judgment from God...covid-19

As a general rule I try real hard to avoid all talk of politics and even some super controversial topics like abortion and homosexuality. Why. Good question. Politics because I don't like them. I tend to lean on the belief that they cause more harm than good. Abortion because...well, I don't know why. And homosexuality because I truly just don't want to get into it. It's an abomination in God's eyes and Scripture says it is God giving sinful people over to their sins. What more needs saying.

Today, I'm going to break my tendency to leave these sort of topics alone. I'm going to write about what I normally won't touch. For the simple reason that I think we need more people talking about these things. We need more voices. Louder voices. We need common sense voices. Questioning voices. Explaining voices. We need personal experience voices.

In short we need more people sharing real life experiences because we are being led deliberately down a 'think only this way' path that can lead nowhere good.

America, and the rest of the world, are currently being gripped by what is proclaimed to be the worst virus in the last century. We are encouraged to stay away from each other for our own safety. We are told to stay at home for our safety. We are told to not even see our own extended families for fear of someone spreading this virus because in as much as 50% of the population it is invisible, showing no symptoms.

What better way to get people afraid than that.

You could easily, because this virus spreads much more easily than others do, and unknowingly spread this thing to all your loved ones and every stranger you meet. Does it get any scarier than that. And so we must, for the sake of those we love, stay home. We are encouraged to use phones and the internet to stay in touch with others. We are encouraged to go out only for groceries but even that should be done as little as possible. And when at the grocery store...don't talk to people. Get in and get what you need so you can get out as soon as possible.

Last week I went to Walmart to discover the entrances and exits have been changed. They were blocked by shopping carts. Instead of being able to walk right into the store you had to go around a long barricade to get in or out. Wow! That's...unusual. Almost frightening. Something must be going on. Everything else was business as usual for the store. No explanation to this new strange phenomenon at the front. Sams had a police car sitting in front of it. Just sitting there. Okay. What's going on there. Who stole what. Is there a crime happening in the store. Did someone shoot someone. What's happening. From all appearances....nothing. People were coming and going with shopping carts. Business as usual save for the police car almost parked in the entrance doors.

What's going on.

It appears to be nothing more than Walmart being Walmart. Limiting the number of customers inside their stores. Choosing what they are going to support and promote. How many viruses have I, or someone in my family caught from Walmart. How many times have I had the flu because I caught it at Walmart. Who knows but I do know I once stood in line behind a customer in Walmart's pharmacy that had whooping cough. No employee brought out masks. No one rushed to sanitize the cart they were using. No one limited the number of people in the store.

Now we have this new virus and the world stops turning. All of a sudden not only are governments telling us what we can and can't do to protect ourselves but so are stores and businesses. Some of them are requiring masks, some are limiting the number of people in the store, some are refusing to let children in, some are taking customers temperatures. I saw a Walmart worker tell a man he couldn't stand where he was standing yesterday. The worker actually said, 'you can't stand there. Get on the blue square."

This all sounds reasonable and even helpful, at least on the surface. Afterall, I don't want a possibly ill stranger standing too close to me while I'm trying to check out. I may not be afraid of this virus but I'm not reckless either. There is a place for caution and common sense.

The trouble is that my common sense is beginning to overtake my hope that all of this covid-19 stuff really is in our best interest. Last week at Walmart I noticed that people are no longer friendly. It's like everyone is inside a bubble and no one else can step near that bubble. Gone are the friendly smiles and small talk between strangers. Gone are the stepping close to someone else with an 'excuse me' as you reach for what you need. Now people crane their necks to see how busy an aisle is before they venture down it. It's every man for himself. It's don't talk to me, don't touch me, and get out of my way.

Our fellow neighbors have become our enemy's.

Last week I saw maybe 25% of shoppers wearing masks. This week at least 80% were wearing them. I get it. I really do. People don't want to get sick. I don't either. But there's a fine line between avoiding an illness and being a pawn in someone else's chess game.

When this whole covid-19, Chinese flu, virus first started no one in America seemed worried about it. Not even the government. When it showed up in America, we were told not to wear masks. We were given a date that it 'started' in our country. I have voiced the question many times, do they really think the first person to test positive was the first person to actually get the virus. There has been a convenient lack of acknowledgement that the flu was especially bad this year. At least it was before the Chinese flu took hold. Then it was POOF. No more flu in America. Now doctors are coming forward and saying they have been told to list covid-19 as the cause of death in anyone with flu like, or covid-19 like, symptoms. Oh, and also if they had no symptoms but were around someone that had contact with someone that tested positive for coronavirus. Or if they had a heart attack. Asthma attack. or...maybe even if the boogey man scared them to death.

Okay. That last part may be a bit far fetched.

Or not.

For the record, I don't generally follow the news in any way. I discovered years ago that my life is more peaceful if I don't pay any attention to what the news is reporting. I'm not fond of hearing what they latest popular people are doing or who shot who. So I generally avoid the news like the plague. That changed about two weeks into this Chinese flu. I wanted to hear the latest updates. I wanted to know about the poor people battling the illness, about what doctors were doing to help those on the brink of death because of it, and how this new virus was impacting everyone.

Something happened to that information, though. Somewhere along the way all the daily updates and information kind of fizzled out. Oh, there's still plenty of covid-19 news out there but it's no longer seeming like it's adding up to much of anything. From the beginning we were pretty much given only news that supported the official stance on the virus. Meaning there were no experts stating anything in objection to what was being fed to us. Maybe I'm an odd one but when I get the news I want it unbiased. I want real facts, real details, and no spin on it. I once wrote a post about how we believe being the lens through which one reads Scripture. Meaning, I enjoy reading of God's predestination and therefore verses that speak of it kind of jump out at me because I am reading it through the lens of believing in predestination. I enjoy reading verses about creation so those verses stand out to me. Someone that wants to hear of God's love for them will be drawn to the verses that speak of it. Someone with an arminian belief will find the verses that support, 'choose Jesus', while someone with a reformed belief will see, 'God chose you'.

I don't want news given through someone else's lens. I don't want news that tells me about the numbers of Chinese flu cases while spinning it through a political view. I just want the facts. So I kind of read news sources from all over and figured if both sides were reporting the same thing than there were the facts. I just disregarded the opinion parts.

Now those facts are getting harder and harder to find. As my husband has said...where are the people sharing their experiences on social media. Where are all the pictures from inside the hospitals. Where are the interviews with people that have seen this firsthand, experienced it first hand. We live in a world where everything is posted on social media. Kids today can't pick their noses without their pictures being shared for the whole world. I have seen too many bare baby bottoms on social media because parents don't think before posting. I have seen things that should have been kept private posted for the whole world to see. What I'm not seeing now are people sharing their experiences from inside the hospitals turned prisons in America.

It's been said that when a person gets sick with covid-19 and go to the hospital they are quarantined inside and no visitors are allowed in. I have seen comments online by people saying they haven't been allowed to visit their loved ones in prison, oh, I mean the hospital.

Because afterall, aren't prisons the only places where people are confined without the right to have visitors.

Where are the personal, daily, hourly, updates on their experience with this deadly virus. Why aren't we seeing posts about how great nurse whoever was or how sick 'I' am. Where are they.

Those questions have been in my mind for a while. I've also been saying this will continue to some extent until there is a vaccine for this new virus. It is people's saving grace. It is also money in greedy pockets. Vaccines are always the answer when there's a new virus. This one is no exception.

And who knows, maybe the Lord will use it to stop the spread of this virus. Or maybe it will be people's own immune systems that He uses to stop it. After all, only the strong survive. What if we don't build an immunity, a true, natural, immunity to a virus the Lord has sent and this immunity will be needed to fight the next plague He sends. What happens then.

Or what if people are so focused on the vaccine as the cure that they miss the fact that God sends plagues as a form of punishment onto sinful people.

He does seem to be pretty angry at the world right now. If news sources can be believed there are only a few countries not being bombarded with this plague of the Chinese flu. Maybe we should be real busy repenting for our sins while looking a bit deeper at the way of life of those unaffected countries. Do they allow homosexual 'marriages'. Do they kill unborn babies.

Why aren't we hearing more about the uneffected countries. Why aren't we seeing more stories that tell if a certain ethnicity is immune. Why aren't we getting more facts.

This all has led me to doing internet searches. Internet searches for more personal experiences. I want to know what the preppers and survivalists are saying. They are people that may sometimes come across as crazy, they live on fear and worry, they prepare for the future, a future that may never come, but they also have a tendency to plan for 'the end of the world as we know it'. And so I searched. Oddly enough, there are few search results that aren't news articles.

Hmm...

There has to be forums and social media groups for these people.

But where are they.

Very few of them are coming up when I do an internet search. No matter what I put in the search bar I get the same results written by the same people.

Okay.

I used to do a lot of research. It was necessary for a career I wanted to go into. The Lord didn't let me go that way but He did teach me how to research. So I researched further. It seemed that no matter what I searched...I got the same sites over and over.

That eventually led me to put those limited results to the test against another topic. I keep seeing how a vaccine will be our saving grace. It's going to deliver us from the evil of this virus. Okay. I understand. People need a science based answer and they need a savior. Most of these people are unregenerate, reprobates even, and they must grasp onto something. Enter the saving grace of a vaccine. We need it. We have got to have it. Our lives depend on it.

They simply can't acknowledge that God is in control. That He is pouring out judgement on a sinful world and that only He can deliver us from this plague. The god's of science and medicine to the rescue. They will give them their savior in the form of a vaccine.

But...

This got me to thinking. About vaccines. About the suppressed information I was finding on the other topics, or rather, not finding, that is out there. About ten years ago I did research into vaccines. I looked into their benefits. I researched their dangers. I read fact sheets, ingredient lists, laws, doctors articles, people's experiences. I wanted to know what I had always taken at face value before.

When I did that research, a quick 'dangers of vaccines' in the search bar of any internet search engine brought back enough results to keep one busy until forever. Out of curiosity I searched the same thing today. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Well, maybe there was one response that might have listed the dangers of vaccines. It was a link to a 500+ page ebook on a chiropractic site. Everything else...EVERYTHING else either promoted the safety of vaccines, debunked the 'myth' that vaccines are dangerous, or talks against people that are against vaccines. Where are all the articles, the blogs, the stories of first hand accounts of people that have objections to, or worse, injuries from, vaccines.

They appear to have disappeared.

Maybe a longer search would have found them. Maybe a deeper search would have. Maybe using different words would have found them. Or a different search engine. Maybe.

Or maybe a headline in the news this morning might give a clue to the answer. Facebook is going to censor posts giving information on covid-19. I can't remember if it's censoring for conspiracy posts or misinformation posts. Either way, it's censoring what people put online.

Could that be what's happening to the posts from people inside the hospitals. Could that be where the pages and pages of dangers of vaccine information has gone. Censored out so that we can no longer read both sides and make informed, common sense, decisions based on what is best for ourselves or our family.

There is a law in Texas that the courts recently used to suspend all non emergency abortions. The law says that during a public health crises (emergency, issue. I don't recall the exact wording.) that people 'temporarily do not have the right to do with their bodies as they please'. This is great from an abortion standpoint. It has given the loophole needed to block abortions. I support that holeheartedly.

But...

It also basically takes everyone's rights away. No longer is your body your own to do with as you please. Because of a 'health emergency' people in Texas can no longer be the sole person deciding on what is in their own best interest. How long until laws like that are used to 'better the greater good' through vaccines, experimental treatments, quarantines, etc.

Or are they already being used.

I don't doubt that the Lord is controlling this entire thing. I firmly believe this is a judgment on a sinful world. He promised never to destroy the earth by flood again but His anger is still poured out. These days it's done through disasters, famine, and diseases.

While I believe that wholeheartedly, I also believe that someone, everyone, needs to speak up. We are being told to stay home, to stay away from people. Gone are the days, at least temporarily, of people, strangers, mingling in town, talking to  each other. Now we are told to stay away from people in town and to talk to them online or by phone instead. There seems to be a huge problem with this, though. To call people on the phone you have to have a phone number. That limits you to only those you know. To talk to them on the internet...

That's a great idea.

It opens up a whole world, literally, of strangers. The only trouble is...the internet is censored. We can hardly find anyone...anywhere...that isn't supporting the stance on this whole chinese virus that 'someone' wants us to know. Social media groups are restricting talk of the covid-19 because they want it to be a place free from that for people's sanity. And internet searches don't offer much unbiased, this is the story, kind of information.




Friday, April 3, 2020

God's wrath is upon us...covid-19

*Please forgive the lack of question marks in this post. My question mark key was not working.*

I haven't had much time for Scripture study lately but my mind has gone often to the judgments of God and to plagues. I recall the 'stories' of the plagues I have read in my beloved Bible, the ones I grew up hearing. Back then those plagues and all the other Bible stories were like fairy tales. Tall tales. Amazing tales of a God I did not understand but rarely doubted was there.

These days I'm better acquainted with Scripture and with God. I understand so much more and I realize that those 'stories' I grew up hearing are as far from fairy tales as one can get. Noah and the flood isn't the fun story it was when I was a kid. Back then I imagined life when all the animals in the world just magically arrived, two by two, and walked right into this giant boat that God ordered made just for them. I imagined what life might have been like to live inside that boat with all those animals. As a kid I never once considered what became of the people not inside the boat. Somehow, my childish mind just simply never thought of them.

Maybe that's for the best because rather than being a fairy tale, the story of Noah's ark is nearly a horror story. At least it is from a human standpoint. From a Scriptural standpoint...God was more than patient and he held off far longer than most people probably would if they were in His place. Still...a child's mind probably shouldn't think of everyone on earth dying except for eight people. And a child should probably focus on the magic of a baby in a basket being saved out of a river and not on the hundreds (thousands) of babies that were murdered.

And so in my child's mind, the Lord, thankfully, made all those plagues in Scripture seem like fairy tales and I failed to take in that they were nothing close to a fairy tale. Then I grew up and eventually came to understand so much more about God and Scripture and I understand now what those plagues were. Judgments from God. His wrath. His holy anger turned on a sinful people.

And now we are living in a time where life is nothing like anything we have ever known before. We are living in 2020, a year that pretty much blew in with a pandemic. We are told to stay at home, stay away from people, keep ourselves safe.

People in town are wearing masks and gloves, some have bandanna's tied around their faces like old time outlaws. And no one seems to think anything of it. People are hiding in their homes. They are locking themselves in their 'safe' places in order to not catch this virus while news outlets give us information that seems to have more holes in it than swiss cheese. All while they feed the fear and keep telling us to stay at home so we can stay safe.

Safe.

Now there's a novel concept. Here we are, fighting a battle the president has labeled an invisible enemy. We are fighting with masks, gloves, alcohol, and some might wonder if others are fighting with toilet paper given it's scarcity these days. We are told to sanitize our groceries when we bring them home, that our mail might make us sick, and above all to stay safe at home.

Home is, I suppose, supposed to be our magical bubble that keeps the germs at bay and will save the world. If only we can stay at home long enough.

Safe.

But how long is long enough to be safe from a virus that is sweeping the world. Two weeks was supposed to have been our magic number, at least at first. Then it was a month. Now it's six weeks. How does one put a time frame on when a virus might disappear. I ask that, not based off Scripture but based off the ideas our unregenerate leaders and advisers seem to be tossing our direction and using to keep an entire country on near house arrest. From a medical or scientific standpoint...how long is long enough. When might the virus just turn us lose and we can all emerge from our homes like some kind of end of the world Hollywood blockbuster movie scene, where people slowly come out, looking around in an awed daze, as they realize the danger is over. When do we reach that point. When does life go back to normal.

Safe.

There is no more normal because we are hiding from this invisible enemy to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Please don't get me wrong, I understand that their is a vulnerable population that has a much higher rate of death than the general population. I understand that the elderly and the ill are at a greater risk. I don't discount that. Quite the contrary, this hidden enemy may have played a role in my Mother's death. That thought stays with me. I will never know the answers to the questions that plague me as to whether or not this virus that we now know is with us might have made my mother sick prior to her sudden and unexpected death. I also live each day knowing that at least one of my children is in the high risk category. I may have lost much as a part of this virus and I cannot stand the thought that I could lose more. Far from taking this lightly, I am watching and waiting. Enjoying every moment the Lord gives me with those I love.

Safe.

Each moment that passes is one we cannot get back. For now, we wait. Safe at home. Safe with each other. Safe in the days the Lord has allotted to us because it's all we can do. We wait. We watch. We love each other.

Safe.

And yet...how safe are we when this virus that the world is so afraid of is a virus that has been unleashed by a God that is so powerful that He literally spoke the world into existence. What good does it do us to hide away from a virus that is, according to the information we are being given, only slightly worse than a bad flu, when it is God's hand that is controlling every one of those germs that people fear so much.

Was Noah saved because He hid in the ark or was he, and His family, saved because of his faith in God. Noah did go inside and hide away from the storm. His door was closed, by the hand of God, and he hid inside that boat while the worst storms the world has ever seen raged outside.

Did Moses survive that river because His mother made a basket that was as safe as a boat and was so balanced that no wave or ripple of the water could overturn it. Did he survive and get rescued because his mother kept him safe in that basket, after all, who in their right mind would ever put a baby in a basket, set it afloat in a body of water and expect it to survive. Moses was placed inside the basket, safely secured away from the horror of the murdering of the babies that was taking place, and safely set a sail on the water so that he might not become a statistic, if they had such a thing back then. He was safe. Hidden away from all the horrors.

Noah, Moses, and many others in Bible 'stories' were spared the ravages of plagues, murder, famine, fire...they were safe but how did that safety come about. Did they stay safe at their own attempts. Or was it God's hand that saved them.

Even Christ separated himself, he went into the garden of Gethsemane and secluded himself where he prayed that God would 'take this cup from me if it be Thy will'.

Thy will.

Where does our safety come from. From doctors and government leaders that tell us we are fighting a virus that showed up in our country in December despite the fact that a good number of American's talk about how sick they were in November. Do we stay safe because we take these people's advice and hide away in our homes seeking shelter from an invisible enemy that is sweeping the world. Is this where safety comes from.

Thy will.

Can we be safe at our own hands. Can we protect our families from a virus we can't even see. Does requiring police officers to text their boss a picture of a thermometer with their temperature on it before coming to work protect us when the leading doctors are saying that at least 50% of people that get the virus carry it and show no symptoms. Does locking down a state and requiring people from another state to quarantine for two weeks do any good when they allow worker in certain fields to go to and from without any quarantine at all.

If a person stays home and never goes out, has everything delivered in, are they safe. Does wearing a mask in town guarantee our safety.

 Safe. Safe. Safe. Hidden away in our homes. Locked inside. Kept on house arrest, our businesses all but closed down, a good number of jobs gone, some of them forever, so we can be safe.

But...Safe is coming as an illusion. We can never be safe from God. America has laughed in the face of God. Flaunted sin after sin before Him. Cried, 'Don't judge me', far and wide. They use terms like, 'don't judge', before they toss out everything from, 'I have a heater under my desk' (someone told me that), to 'I'm a homosexual' or 'I've had six abortions' or...whatever. Just so long as 'don't judge' is remembered far and wide, maybe especially by God.

All these sins and more have been wallowed in like the most gluttoneous of pigs in the biggest of mud puddles. And now that there's a new virus, a plague, sweeping the world, these same people are hiding in their homes, closed up in their safe places believing that they can protect themselves and their loved ones from this germ. Even the professing Christians seem to be missing the point on what this virus, this covid-19, this coronavirus, is. They blame it on a virus, which it is, but do not say...'this is God's wrath on a sinful world'. They don't say, 'we, even the so-called Christians, have all but spit in the face of God, daring Him to show His hand, while they say things like, 'come as you are', and 'hate the sin, love the sinner', and they endorse homosexuality, idolotry, and covetousness, to say nothing of divorce and encouraging men to sell Christ to earn more than a fair wage while they do not work six days a week as Paul says they should. So we are facing a 'pandemic' and no one mentions that it's a judgment from God. No one says that we are under God's wrath.

I think of Soddom and Gomorah. No one was safe hiding in their homes. God's wrath was upon them and their was no hiding, no staying safe. And now we have a world, watching and waiting with bated breath, hiding in their homes and behind masks, safe from a virus that is being controlled by God. The same God they defy even in their safe places.

How safe can one be from the very God that gives them breath.

How safe can we be when it is God's hand that spreads the virus. His hand that uses the virus to take a life. His hand that restrains a virus in people that get it but have no symptoms.

How safe are we in our safe places when it is the Lord who decides whether or not our safe place will burn down tonight or topple in a tornado.

How safe are we from God's wrath now that He has decided to unleash part of it on the world.

We are safe in our safe places...so long as the Lord uses those safe places to keep us safe.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Keeping them restrained...repost

I recently picked up a book from a reformed company and read over the first couple of pages. On the second page I discovered a paragraph that I thought perfectly summed up America's 'churches'. In this book a woman was speaking to a preacher and she suggested something that the preacher didn't agree with. The lady quickly dismissed the preacher by suggesting he go eat and work on his sermon. The part that stuck with me though was how the woman told the preacher that they would need him to preach as good as he could to keep them from turning on one another. She told him that if he could preach well enough to keep them all on speaking terms than he would have more than earned his pay.

That is a fictional book written in 1917 and reprinted by a reformed company today. I know little else about that book, only the publishers description of what the book is about. But that single paragraph so accurately summed up today's 'church' buildings, at least I thought it did.

I was once told by someone raised in the Roman Catholic faith that the Catholic 'church' seemed to be the cover for sin. They went to the services than lived a life of sin all the rest of the time. I recently read something written by someone raised in the same faith that essentially said exactly what I had been told before, only this person said that Roman Catholicism is used as a license to sin. Only thing is, most denominations are that way, at least the one's I have experienced are.

I heard a preacher sum it up great one time. This preacher said that they put on their Sunday face to go to services then live their normal lives all the other time, lives that look just like the rest of the world. If even a preacher spoke on it, than what purpose does the preacher serve?

I had a relative tell me about a year ago that God wants more preachers to preach on hell. That spawned a short conversation that I won't go into here but the gist of it was that this person truly believed what she said. She honestly thought that God wanted those preachers to preach on hell and the preachers were not doing it. Since then I have seen several things online that say we need preachers that will preach on sin and hell. Only thing with that is if you share online sermons given by preachers that truly do preach on sin and hell, they don't want to watch or listen to them. It all sounds good in theory, even looks good shared on social media or their blog, but let them really come face to face with a sermon, with a preacher, with a person, that tells them that their lying, their covetousness, their selfishness, their lack of total devotion to the true Lord, are sin and they don't want to listen. Give them a sermon that tells them that the prayer they prayed at some point may have only deluded them into thinking that they won't spend eternity in hell and they will quickly turn it off. It sounds good to say they want to hear more about sin and hell but the truth is most of them don't want to hear anything of the like.

Week after week, 'Christians' fill the pews in their chosen 'church' and what do they hear? They are told of how they should help others, of how to better their marriage, of how to have better family relationships, of how to get along with coworkers, of how to...manage their lives. And really, if you think about the majority of those sermons, what they want, and what they get, are sermons that keep them corralled enough to keep them from turning on each other and those who they encounter every day. Oh, they may or may not literally turn on each other but that's the gist of what the sermons do, they rein them in for a time, keep them corralled, keep them contained within a certain area.

It is as if the sermon puts a gate around the person that lets them stray so far and only so far. They are restrained within the gate. When I was seven I was put into a 'Christian' school. I was signed up for it before the school year started. I remember sitting with friends, in my home, one day and one of the kids wanted me to say something, I can't remember what. The part I do recall very well was telling those friends that I couldn't say that because I was about to start going to a 'Christian' school.

On that day, the enrollment in a 'Christian' school restrained me. It kept me from doing something simply because I knew I would soon be going to that school. Somehow, in my childish mind, I believed that what school I went to determined, in some way, what I could and could not do.

Does 'church' work the same way for the people that fill the pews each Sunday?

I've heard my husband say many times that the Lord uses 'churches' to restrain people. How many people that go to those services are restrained in their sins because of what they are taught within the doors of the building? How many of those people are restrained week after week because of the sermon they hear every Sunday?

If a person goes to a 'church' every Sunday and sits through the weekly sermon, they will hear a different message every week. This week they might hear about restraining their speech. Next week they might hear about resolving marital conflict. Another week they may get a lesson on bill paying under the title of 'Christian' stewardship. On and on the list of sermons goes, and with it comes an endless selection of topics, much like walking into a library and picking a book off the shelf. This book is about cats, that one dogs. Another book on plumbing. Others on famous people, small pox, cholera, shoes, dolls... There is no end of topics to the books one can find within the walls of a library. And, it would seem, there is no end of topics that a preacher might pull from his hat to 'teach' to his congregation.

But what purpose do those sermons serve?

Listening to a sermon on restraining one's speech might be beneficial, a reminder to watch the things we say, but in the end does it serve any purpose? Wouldn't a true Christian already be aware of the fact that their speech should be restrained? I'm a tell it like it is kind of person and I can attest to the fact that I am well aware of the Scripture verses on speech and how we should speak to others. I also have a tendency to encounter times when my mouth works almost before my brain. But even in that, I control my speech. There are certain things I do not say. Ever. Are there things I say that maybe I shouldn't? Probably. Do I sometimes say things I later wish I hadn't said. Yes. Do I try harder next time? Yes. Do I need a preacher to get up on stage before me, mentally hold my hand, and tell me how I should be careful of the things I say? No. 

I already know to be careful of my speech because Scripture tells me to. I already have a restraint on me because my Lord, through His Word, says...

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29 ESV


And that restraint lives within my heart and conscious. If I say something I shouldn't I know it and feel remorse for it. I know to watch my speech because Scripture tells me to, not because a preacher got up on stage, read a few verses, shared a few stories geared to tug at my human emotions, and said I should.

Likewise, I don't need a preacher to get up on a stage and tell me how to manage my money as a 'good 'christian' steward' because I already know, from Scripture, that nothing I own truly belongs to me. Everything I have is because the Lord allowed me to have it. I also know that all of the world belongs to the Lord and therefore all that is in the world belongs to Him. I don't need a preacher to give me a sermon on why I should manage my money well because doing so is good 'christian' stewardship. 

I know what the Scriptures say. I know, from the Lords Word, what is expected of me. Do I always do what is expected of me? I'm human. I fail. Are there times when I should have given money to someone and didn't? Are there times when I should have spent less on things of this world and invested more into people? Sure. It happens. Are there times that I buy something without giving a second thought to how the money I just spent could have been used for someone in need? Often. Are there times that I buy something and then regret it? Yes. I'm human. But I don't lavishly spend money. I don't have fancy cars, houses, clothes or jewelry. Does that justify anything? Not a single thing. 

My husband is fond of saying, 'we could live in a cardboard box under a bridge'. THAT is something I would not feel the least bit comfortable doing, for safety reasons, but I'm sure that if I did live in a cardboard box under a bridge I would still have too much of this world in that paper home.

There is a movement in America right now toward tiny homes. Supposedly some of those tiny houses are no bigger than a parking space. I have never actually seen a tiny home but the idea holds some sort of interest to me. My husband gets claustrophobic at the very thought of living in such a tiny home. I find the idea...intriguing. I highly doubt I would truly want to live in such a small space but there is some kind of appeal in the way the houses are made and in the imagining of how one might manage to live out their life in such a small space. I am sure, though, that that small space would get very old, very quick.

These tiny homes have become something of a trend. People claim that they save on utility bills and that living in a smaller space frees up money and time to focus on other things, things one wants to do. I'm sure they are right. Utility bills must go down when you live in a space the size of a parking space and how long can it take to clean such a small space. I can clean my living room in about twenty minutes, that sweeping, mopping, dusting, putting up anything that may have been left out, even washing walls and doors. My living room is bigger than many of these tiny homes. How long can cleaning one of them take? An hour?

So people move into these tiny homes to save money and time but the price of buying these parking lot sized homes is astronomical. One could live in such a tiny home and actually spend more money than if they simply lived in a normal house. Then, too, would come in the...pride...of owning such. Is there pride in living in a tiny home, in doing what many think they could not? Are they just as proud of their 100 square foot home as the person living in a 5000 square foot home is of theirs?

And guess what? There's a preacher out there somewhere that stands before his congregation on Sunday and preaches on the evils of pride. There is evil in pride but does the lesson he imparts on Sunday going to sink all the way into the hearts of the people sitting in his congregation? Or does it simply make them stop and think for a while?

Would a true Christian, a Christian that knows Scripture, need to sit in a 'church' and be told about the evils of pride so that they don't take pride in their home or their car or their...whatever? Or would they know not to be prideful because, 1) the Lord has changed their heart and removed most, if not all, of the pride they once felt, and 2) they know that pride is wrong, a sin, and they fight any hint of it in their life. 

Pride could be a sin for a Christian. I'm sure some struggle with it. Being a Christian doesn't take away our humanness, it just changes it. We are still human. We still stumble. We fall. We do wrong. But we don't need a preacher holding our hand and telling us, oh, so gently, that we are doing wrong. The Lord will do that.

But week after week, sermon after sermon, that is exactly what preachers in 'churches' do. They get up on a stage, standing before their loyal subjects, and mentally hold their hands, guiding them through things that if they were the Christian they claim to be they should already have at least a passing understanding of. And if they somehow don't understand those things, their changed hearts should guide them. 

Instead of seeing that in the Sunday 'Christians' though, we see people being led, gently, by their preachers. They learn to control their speech, if they learn at all, because their preacher tells them through a few verses and a lot of stories that they should control it. They learn to be good financial stewards because their preacher says they should. And the reality is that most of them don't really learn the lessons taught by their preachers. They are merely reined in until the lesson fades from their thoughts, replaced by the next feel good rule that gives them just enough of a challenge to motivate them to better behavior. That is, of course, unless the preacher should actually preach on something that they find too much of a challenge to give up. 

But the preacher knows that. He knows that his congregation is mired in the ways of the world. He may say that they are different from the world but he knows that they live as the world, even if he doesn't voice it. He knows it because there is no way to get past it. All he has to do is walk the aisles and hallways of his 'church' before or after a service, mingle with those there, listen to, or join, their talks of baseball games, kids dance classes, television shows, books, and whatever else they may speak of.

The preacher knows they live like the world, although he may not understand that they truly are just like the world. He may honestly believe that because they said a prayer, or did some other right of passage, that they are different than the world and that the right of passage that gave them 'salvation' has made them different. He may truly not understand that they are no different than the world they just lay claim to a difference that really does not make them different. And why might he not understand that? Because he was led, possibly his whole life, by preachers that got up on a stage and fed him bite sized bits of Scripture, twisted and changed, to form a certain idea or belief or to support a certain way of believing. These preachers taught him to be another one of them. He has had his hand held and his emotions manipulated and his mind altered to believe what they want him to believe. He most likely went to a special school, called a Seminary, to learn just how to manipulate those that he finds himself in charge of. He was taught that there is an art to preaching, that he must give them what they want so that they will come into his 'church'.

When I was in junior high I took a choir class. In that class we often sang a song about little boxes. I can't remember the name of the song but I can well remember the point to it, can even remember a good amount of the words. This song was about neighborhoods that all the houses are the same although they may be different colors. And about people that are all the same. Some may be doctors, some lawyers, some business men but they are all the same.

Preachers, with few exceptions, are all the same. They are like carbon copies of one another. Oh, they have differences, they teach and preach different things. Some are married, some aren't. Some have kids, some don't. Some have hair, some don't. Some are old, some are young. They may have different allegiances. Some are Baptist. Some Pentecostal. Some Methodist. But...they all, generally, are the same. Their goal is to bring the crowds in and keep them coming in. They need to boost numbers. Those numbers show up in the form of how many souls they 'won' and how much money comes through the offering plate. They boost attendance. They boost vacation Bible school attendees. They boost their missions contributions, missions trips, and outreach programs. But...they are the same. 

They stand before people week after week, giving watered down sermons that tug at the emotions, hit just enough nerves to make people feel pushed to step a tiny bit outside their comfort zones, but really asks nothing of them and does not tell them that they are perishing in their lives that look just like the rest of the world. These preachers have done their jobs and earned their pay if they keep their congregations from turning on one another, figuratively anyway. 

I read a news article a week or so ago about a preacher that preached against a certain sin. As he preached his congregation was so offended that he later said 50-75% of the congregation walked out of the service. Someone commented on that, saying that the preacher had weeded out the bad and now had the good in the audience. He could now proceed to preach to those that were the ones that should have been there in the first place. 

I wonder though, if that preacher had changed topics, taught on say why those that watch certain television shows are enjoying and promoting what the Lord hates...how many more would have walked out? If he had then gone on to tell them that the prayer they thought 'saved' them was nothing more than a delusion that will lead them straight to hell...how many more would walk out? If he had told them that their fancy house, their pretty clothes, their hobbies, their...earthly joys that they spend so much on...was covetousness and a sin...how many more would have walked out? How many 'weeds' could he have removed from his congregation? 

50-75% of his congregation walked out that day because he preached against something they supported. But he preached on one topic. He weeded out the 'bad' with a single sermon, on a single topic. What if he had gone through a whole list of sins? Would he have had anyone left in his congregation when he finished?

I once heard a reformed preacher say that he went somewhere to preach once. He was supposed to give a series of sermons. After the first sermon he was approached by the leaders of wherever he was and told that he would not be allowed to preach again. He had delivered a message that they did not agree with, a message that told them things they didn't want to hear most likely, and was told he had to leave.

People don't want preachers that tell them the truth. They don't want preachers that preach on hell and sin, although they might claim they do. They want preachers that stand before them week after week and gently guide them just enough to keep them from 'turning on one another'. They want preachers that give them a goal to work toward, a goal that makes them feel better about themselves and makes them feel that they are different because they do these 'christian' things.

They can be proud of themselves because they are 'christians' and they sacrifice certain things for their faith. They give their money, their time, may even learn to be more cautious in their choice of clothing, words, or entertainment. But it is a gentle reining in with a wide fence that keeps them corralled while still giving them plenty of room to enjoy the world. The forbidden things are out there but they are the things they generally don't want anyway.

Preachers are taught in Seminary how to learn the likes and demographics of their congregation and to preach to those things. Rich congregations require different preaching, different sermons, than poor ones. Inner city congregations require different sermons than country congregations. Mountain congregations require different sermons than ocean congregations. The people have different perspectives on life, different beliefs, different morals, and those things, preachers are taught, must be taken into consideration and preached to. 

Congregations are coddled where they are in their lives. If you have a 'church' that supports rescuing animals a preacher would never think of going into that 'church' and preaching about how animals have become huge idols for people. Likewise, a preacher would never walk into a 'church' that takes great pride in holding a 'fall festival' and preach on the evils of anything having any connection to Halloween.

Preachers in most 'churches' are simply giving a well thought out, even researched, sermon, designed to pander to his audience, sure as a plumber would not walk into a building and work on the computer system. A plumber knows his business and he sticks to plumbing. It keeps his clients happy and it keeps the building working properly. It would do him no good to connect kitchen sink plumbing up to a computer cord. It would create nothing but trouble for the computer and the kitchen plumbing and it would result in him losing his job. A preacher cannot walk into a 'church' where the congregation wants their hands held and their emotions touched and give them the gospel straight from the pages of Scripture. He would create confusion, upset, and would, most likely, eventually lose his 'job'.

So instead, they walk in, week after week, and give a gentle sermon that reins in his congregation for the next week. It keeps them in their 'christian' persona just enough to ensure they don't turn on each other. It restrains them from living in complete sin. It slows them down, settles them a bit, and lets them believe that they have been stretched as 'christians'.