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THE BOX IN THE TRUNK

9/24/2019

  The Box in the Trunk
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. (Psalms 91:1-2)

I’M NOT A FAST LEARNER and it took me a while to realize that the Lord’s hand is busy keeping us from wiping ourselves out.

WHEN I BECAME THE NIGHT OPERATOR AT THE HWY 41 SHELL STATION, I was suddenly in charge of a lot of wealth (and boom power!). Mr. Wolf was a retired military officer and he had sunk all his savings into this place; and had put it in the hands of this…country kid that he truly knew nothing about. Didn’t he realize that his product was gasoline and that a spark could set off the whole place in one gigantic boom!? I hadn’t thought about it either. I caught a whiff of honeysuckle and that was proof that this was the place to be.

THE CASH REGISTER WAS THE MAIN INTEREST OF NIGHT ROBBERS and I simply refused to think about that. I would try not to make anybody nervous if they wanted it. I’ve already mentioned that after I cleaned up the place and hosed down the paved area, I climbed up in my old bread truck and practiced piano. I had to get in two hours a day since I was studying with two teachers: one taught me the classics and the other one taught me hymn playing.

I HAD A ROSTER OF VISITORS THAT CAME BY throughout the night, just to get a Dr. Pepper or chat. They were not dangerous and pleasant to talk with. There WAS this one guy, a disturbed, middle-aged lawyer who was having trouble with his wife, mother-in-law and alcohol, in no certain order. He had visited me several times and he wanted me to play hymns for him and I had learned not to tell him I would put him on my prayer list. He wanted to be remembered in prayer without having to be put on a list. No problem. I still remember him without reading his name off a prayer list. I just don’t remember his name.

HE HAD A BEAUTIFUL, ALMOST NEW GREEN FORD, just like the one in the picture above. He always pulled into the station in a feisty manner. But, on this night, he slowly creeped into the station and parked off to the side. I looked up and noticed that the whole front end of his car was really banged up. He had tangled with something solid, for sure. He came up to the bread truck where I was practicing piano.

I SAID: "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR CAR? His mind was not on his car. He said: “I just ran it through the window and wall of my mother-in-law’s bedroom, but I didn’t get her.” I waited. (Why has he come over here to tell me all of this?) “She’s the worst thing that ever happened to me and I tried to kill her.” And then…

HE SAID TO ME, "COME HERE, I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING." I climbed out of the bread truck on the grease rack and followed him to his beat-up, new car. We went to the back of the car and he opened the trunk. The streetlight shined in and I could see a wooden crate in the trunk. He removed the lid and there was a case of expensive whiskey in fancy square, tall bottles.

HE PULLED OUT A BOTTLE AND PUT THE LID BACK ON THE CRATE. He broke the seal, popped the bottle and turned it up and began to guzzle until he had to breathe. (I”ve never tried whiskey, but I’ve heard it’s too strong to guzzle.) He returned the unfinished bottle back to the case and reached for something else.

HE PULLED OUT A HOLSTER AND REMOVED A BIG, BEAUTIFUL PEARL-HANDLED 45 caliber pistol. “Do you know what this is?” “Sure do, that’s a beautiful, pearl-handled 45!” Do you know what I’m going to do with it?” “No, I have no idea what you’re going to do with it. What do you have in mind?” (Had I ticked him off about something? It was clear that he was a very unstable dude.) “Well, first, I’m going to drink all of this whiskey I can hold and get myself real drunk, and then I’m going to go back over to my house and shoot my mother-in-law.” He was already on his way to being stagger-drunk and had enough whiskey in the wooden crate to take down several big men.

NOT BEING THE HERO TYPE AND WEIGHING 140 POUNDS TO HIS 200 POUNDS, I decided to engage him in conversation and try to steer him away from his mother-in-law. I don’t remember if I suggested that we sing a hymn or if I offered to play Amazing Grace for him, but somehow the conversation dragged out until he sat down and slowed down. He was too far gone to drive himself anywhere. All I can remember is that the night dragged on and he did not go shoot his mother-in-law.

SEEING THAT WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT A DAY MAY BRING FORTH, do you suppose we ought to face each day with that in mind and recognize: up front, that we need to depend on the Lord for EACH day? I think so. There’s more than one “DUDE” out there. That episode helped me to remember that I can’t handle the day by myself.

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019 - WEDNESDAY
A.M. Isaiah 4-6    P.M. Galatians 3
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

A Good Verse to Memorize:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:6)

Song for Today:
I Know Who Holds Tomorrow (4:15) (Gaither Assembly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWLm3asMiGo
(You may have to adjust the volume and delete an ad.)

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the prayer list

9/20/2019

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The Prayer List
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. (Isaiah 49:15-16)

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THE EARTH trembles beneath our feet and all familiar pillars of reality are shaken; until the only reality we know is the name and presence of the Lord God. This may occur while the preacher is pouring forth the Word of God or it may happen in the hospital room or the funeral home or by the graveside, or...an unexpected pink slip comes your way.

OUR TEXT TODAY PRESENTSA SCENE from the writing hand of the prophet: Isaiah. He speaks on the behalf of God and pleads with people who feel God has forsaken them. The feeling of being forgotten is before us in the text. To counter that misplaced notion, God has Isaiah to write this striking thought: “I have written your name on the palms of both My hands.”

SEEING THAT HE IS ADDRESSING MANY INDIVIDUALS in the land of Israel, we can rightly assume that God had many names written on the palms of His hands. It is a huge prayer list written in duplicate: that is, the names are written on both hands of the Lord. That’s duplicate. God does not pray to Himself but here He is portraying Himself as one of them and we human beings have to be reminded of things.

GOD DOESN'T HAVE TO BE REMINDED OF ANYTHING, but He condescends, brings Himself down to the level of the people He loves so they can understand how precious they are to Him. This is a reminder list. If we were to use it, we would call it our prayer list.

WHEN I HEARO SMEONE MENTION A PRAYER LIST, I often think of a night in Chattanooga, TN when I was the lone attendant at a Shell Gas station on the Old Ringgold Road, South, going toward Atlanta. It was 1956 and Hwy. 41 South was the main drag to Atlanta, trucks and all. I-75 didn’t yet exist.

I CAME ON DUTY AT 11:00 P.M., worked five nights for $45. Since we were a full-service station, I pumped the gas, cleaned the windshield, checked the oil and fan belt, received payment and made conversation if they chose to do so. We had a lot of rest room visitors and this required a close watch to keep them clean and orderly.

NIGHT ATTENDANTS WERE INSTRUCTED that if someone wanted into the cash register, to help them put it in their car if need-be and not to be a hero. So, the big guy in a white T-shirt who wanted change for a dollar for cigarettes didn’t bother me much until I noticed he didn’t buy any cigarettes and left in a hurry. Almost as quickly, the night policeman came in and asked what the man had said. I went out to the squad car and listened to his radio. In about 15 minutes he heard a report from another police car. Someone had robbed a Kayo station nearby. No doubt, he wanted change for a dollar to buy cigarettes. They got him.

ONE OF THIS POLICEMAN'S SKILLS (he was about 60) was getting the cars that ran away from him. He had a souped-up engine. If a guy wouldn’t stop, he would bump the rear of the car on one end of the rear bumper. It would throw the car off balance. He would bump the car in rhythm until it flipped the car over onto its top. Those who knew him, didn’t mess with him. It was a good feeling to have him checking on me several times every night. He knew the service stations were targets for robbers, so he kept a close watch on them. He wasn’t a bully. He just did his job.

THE BRASS RAIL WAS DOWN THE ROAD A MILE OR TWO. The bar lady loved her product and often needed a dollar’s worth of gas to get home after 3:00 a.m. More than once, while I was pumping gas and cleaning her windshield, she slumped over. I would urge her to scoot over enough for me to get under the steering wheel and move the car away from the gas pump. She was usually gone by daylight.

MY JOB WAS TO SERVICE GAS CUSTOMERS UNTIL TRAFFIC DIED DOWN and then hose off the whole paved area, the grease rack and clean the rest rooms and sales room. I needed to work 1-2 hours of piano practice into my day somewhere, so I bolted to the floor of a retired bread van, a spinet-size Wurlitzer piano. I backed the truck into the lube bay, hooked up an overhead light and pounded away on Bach and Beethoven.

ONE NIGHT, A TROUBLED LAWYER, about 45, poked his head into the van and listened a while. I played a hymn for him. He began to inquire about this strange thing of a piano on a grease rack. Then he shared his troubled life and it became several times a week, thing. One night, I was pushed for time and I said to him: “I’m going to put you on my prayer list.” I shouldn’t have said that. It was like I had slapped him. He was high on the booze and came back at me: “Well, I was beginning to think you cared something about me but if you have to write my name on a prayer list to remember to pray for me, just forget it, you hear? Just forget it!

MAYBE HE HAD A POINT, I THOUGHT. I saw he had been in church a lot and knew about prayer lists and he wasn’t impressed by what he had seen in his home church, apparently. That was 63 years ago, and I have never completely stopped thinking about what caused him to flare at me. I wish I had known about God’s list of names He has written on the palms of his hands. I would have told him about it.

HE DIDN'T HAVE SELF-RESPECT and he was getting used to the idea that maybe God knew about him. His wife and mother-in-law didn’t think much of him. (It was probably more about the obnoxious person he had become.) And then, his hopes were dashed when he saw that he was a name on a piece of paper. He was not worth enough to be remembered without being on a prayer list. I had never encountered such, before or since. All learning does not come from a book. Learning is wherever you find it or wherever it runs over you and that one ran over me.

I STILL THINK PRAYER LISTS ARE A GOOD THING and every once in a while, I will write down some names to help me remember who I should pray for; especially the names on FaceBook and people I meet here and there, Walmart, etc. But, I also remember that night when that drunken lawyer almost lost it because the “preacher boy” thought so little of him that he had to write his name on paper to remember him. But, I would have to say:

“LAWYER MAN, YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO SETTLE FOR WHAT YOU CAN GET. If I pray for you by name, I’m going to have to write down your name.” I could pray for the lawyer who drove the new, green Ford car. I’ve often wondered about this fellow. Alcohol about had him. I changed jobs and never saw him again. Problem is, he still goes with me a lot of places. I’ve never told another drunk that I would put his name on a prayer list. I do tell them, sometimes: “I’m going to pray for you.” Ω

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 20, 2019 - FRIDAY
A.M. Ecclesiastes 10-12 P.M. 2Corinthians 11:16-33
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

A Good Verse to Memorize:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:6)

Song for Today:
I Know He Heard My Prayer (4:26) (Gaither Assembly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjcdG-dyHlk
(You may have to adjust the volume and delete an ad. This is the best version of this I could find.

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you and oneness

9/18/2019

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You and Oneness

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:…. (Genesis 1:26)

I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. (John 10:30-33)

And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. (John 8:29)

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. (John 17:11)

ARE YOU ONE WITH GOD? These scattered verses all contribute to the idea of oneness between the Father and Son, oneness between members of Christ’s body – the church, and oneness between us and God. If we are created in the image of “us” (the Godhead), we can expect the result to be unity and oneness throughout our entire being.

WHEN WE LOOK INTO THE MIRROR, we see two eyes, two eyebrows, upper and lower lips and teeth, brow and chin. All of them work in harmony as one unit. Part of our being in the image of God is unity, oneness, harmony in the parts of our body.

THE MIRROR DOES NOT SHOW OUR TEN TOES. When we consider all the parts of our body, we realize that the many parts and functions must result in oneness and harmony, we can say with David: I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. (Psalms 139:14)

OUR TWO EYES ARE SET APART ENOUGH TO ENABLE US TO JUDGE DISTANCE as a visual triangle is made. What a computer our brain is to be able to estimate distance because our eyes are set apart. Because our ears are set apart, we can judge the direction and distance of sound coming to us. But those functions must work as a unit of oneness.

OUR PERSONALITY IS ALSO DIVIDED BUT BROUGHT TOGETHER in oneness. We desire new experiences that involve risk. Some people like to parachute out of planes or jump off a high bridge with a bungee cord. Opposite the desire for excitement is the desire for non-risk security. So, our personality is constantly divided between our desire for new and exciting things that involve risk and those things that go nowhere and give us a sense of security.

PEOPLE LIKE TO WATCH MOVIES THAT ARE AN ARTIFICIAL RISK. But the risk must end with an expected solution where the good and familiar prevails. Great music makes many twists and turns and acquaints us with all manner of harmonies but in the end, music must arrive at the home chord as the kettle drums pound the final sounds! Home! Finished! An expected end!

A COLLEGE COURSE IN CHRISTIAN PERSONALITY (at Tenn. Temple) contained this statement: “The single most unifying force of the personality is prayer.” Real prayer is deep and broad and brings everything together into one triumphant finale! At Falling Springs Baptist Church, we called that: “Praying through!”

JESUS BROUGHT ALL THINGS TOGETHER AS ONE ON THE CROSS when He shouted the final words: “It is finished!” Our calendar is B.C. and A.D. Christ’s cross and resurrection are the great apex of history! There came an earthquake that opened graves in Jerusalem! The precious veil in the Temple was ripped in two from top to bottom!...a prelude to His resurrection three days later when many dead came out of the previously opened graves and appeared to many in Jerusalem who had gathered from all over Israel for the great Passover Feast!

KEEP THAT ONE QUIET IF YOU CAN! For a lifetime, the children told what they saw and heard in Jerusalem and passed it on to their children and grandchildren. The story became a great veil of oneness over the land of Israel, the birthplace of Christianity.

THE BODY OF JESUS WAS MISSING FROM JOSEPH'S TOMB and a frantic search for His body yielded nothing. The soldiers guarding the tomb fell as dead men and were given hush money to say they had fallen asleep and Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body while they slept.

THAT WEEKEND WAS THE GREAT UNIFIER OF THE BRANCH OF HUMANITY that was seeking after God! For all the differences that exist in the body of Christ, we are unified around the Word of God, the virgin birth of the Christ child, His sinless life, His vicarious atonement on the cross, His bodily resurrection from the dead and His imminent return to earth to receive His bought ones and His thousand-year reign upon the throne of David in Jerusalem.

ARE YOU ONE WITH CHRIST? Do you share in the promise of the great resurrection when all His people will come out of their graves? For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18)

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 - THURSDAY
A.M. Ecclesiastes 1-3 P.M. 2Corinthians 9
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

A Good Verse to Memorize:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:6)

Song for Today:
Because He Lives (3:43) (Gaither Program)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBLRsUMtuFQ
(You may have to adjust the volume and delete an ad. This is the best version of this I could find. Great song.

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jesus and oneness

9/18/2019

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Jesus and Oneness
These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: (John 17:1)

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. (John 17:11)

I WAS SAVED AT AGE NINE AND BEGAN TO READ THE BIBLE, primarily by following the plan in my Sunday school quarterly and training union quarterly. Gradually, I became more and more familiar with Bible landmarks. I liked to do “sword drills” on Sunday night with a dozen or so others my age. If I was going to do better at sword drills (finding random verses before someone else), I needed to memorize the books of the Bible.

SURPRISINGLY, I ENJOYED MEMORIZING BOOKS OF THE BIBLE and practiced it regularly like basketball players practice dribbling and “laying up” the ball during warm-ups. I strongly recommend memorizing the books of the Bible.

I MUST HAVE READ THE 17TH CHAPTER OF JOHN several times but there was this one time, after I was grown, when I saw what Jesus was praying for. He was praying that His followers might become one just like He and the Father are one. Hold it! I had visited several churches and saw that they were still “not one” as Jesus was one with the Father. When and how is this going to happen? It bothered me that I was doubting that God could ever make His people into one.

THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF THE NEW NATION of the United States of America adopted “E-Pluribus Unum” (out of many: one). That was a lofty goal. If a hand-full of Christians have trouble “being one,” how could millions of people “become one?”

IT SO HAPPENS THAT WHILE ON THIS EARTH, there are going to be law breakers in the American citizenship and there are going to be rule breakers in Jesus’ church He is building. What to do with the law breakers and rule breakers? American citizens who do not want to be one with the laws will encounter the police power of the State and will suffer the consequences of breaking the law.

OUR FOUNDING FATHERS HAD SAID PUBLICLY that our new form of government would only work among a moral people who willingly obey the laws of the nation; that our form of government IS wholly inadequate for any other kind of people.

WHEN JESUS WAS PRAYING FOR "ONENESS" in John 17, He understood all would not quickly submit to oneness. It would be a drawn-out process. We would come to know it as the process of sanctification. We are babes in Christ, will behave like children and will only do better as we grow in the Lord.

Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: (1 Peter 2:1-2)

But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. (Colossians 3:16-17)

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. (Hebrews 5:12-13)

And some were never born again: For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. (Hebrews 4:2)

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (Hebrews 12:14) It is not peace and holiness that saves us. Following after these two things is characteristic of people who have been born again. Notice that it is a matter of following after, chasing after, pursuing after peace with all men and holiness.

I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. (3 John 1:9) Don’t be surprised to find this kind in a church.

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. (Romans 16:17)
For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. (Romans 16:18) Watch out for this kind and…avoid them. Don’t let them influence you.

SOME OF THEM WOULD VOLUNTARILY LEAVE THE CHURCH. Others would have to experience discipline by the local church body. Being one with each other and being one with Jesus and the Father is not settled by an experience or two with God. We become one with God and one with each other as we learn how to walk with God and learn how to crucify self, getting self out of the way so the Spirit of God can work unhindered in us. Being one is not a sudden, one-time experience. It is a way of life that we experience as we go through all the experiences God either sends or permits to come our way.

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 18, 2019 - WEDNESDAY
A.M. Ecclesiastes 1-3 P.M. 2Corinthians 9
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.

A Good Verse to Memorize:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:6)

Song for Today:
How Great Thou Art (3:45) (Royal Albert Hall-Big Sing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBLRsUMtuFQ
(You may have to adjust the volume and delete an ad.

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E-Pluribus Unum

9/16/2019

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E-Pluribus Unum

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. (Psalms 33:12)

Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. (Psalms 33:18-19)

SHORTLY AFTER THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, the war that followed, and the hammering out of our governing documents in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, the Congress came to the issue of an official seal that could be made into a metal die and stamped onto all official documents and the money of the United States of America. There were two sides of the seal. (The eagle is on the front side.)

THE FRONT AND BACK OF THE SEAL ARE STAMPED ONTO OUR ONE-DOLLAR BILLS so that the poorest of Americans can see the heart of what America is all about. Here is an excellent article that goes into detail and I hope you will take the time to read it. It’s a keeper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States#1935_dollar_bill

THE NEW NATIONAL MOTTO: “In God We Trust” is also printed on our one dollar bills.
“E-pluribus unum” was the national motto until July 30, 1956. On that day, Congress passed a bill and President Eisenhower signed the change into law, officially making “In God We Trust” the national motto of the United States. Congress found “In God We Trust” to be a superior and more acceptable motto: than “E-pluribus Unum.”

(PERHAPS PRESIDENT EISENHOWER WAS REMEMBERING THE NIGHT before our troops went ashore on the beaches of Normandy, when he spent the night pacing the floor and praying for God’s help and protection over the men who would be going ashore. That memory may have made it easy for him to sign the new motto: “In God We Trust.”)

TODAY, I WANT TO FOCUS ON THE WORDS: E-Pluribus Unum, which is Latin for: “Out of many, one.” On the front side of the seal is an eagle, our national bird, which has in its right talons an olive branch. In its left talons a sheaf of 13 arrows. America is prepared to engage in peace or war. The beak of the eagle is turned toward the olive branch, indicating that we prefer peace, but if need-be, we are prepared for war.

OUR FOUNDING FATHERS WERE BRILLIANT AND EXPERIENCED MEN, chosen by the population to design and execute the formation of our nation. They needed a motto for the new nation, and they chose: “E-Pluribus Unum,” – “Out of many – one.” The success or failure of the founding of our nation depended upon the carrying out of that motto.

IN MY LIFETIME, A RESPECTED SCHOLAR: DR. R.J. RUSHDOONY, wrote a book: “The One and the Many.” I met him, read the book several times and finally gave it to a young minister. It is no small task for many to agree and act as one. There will always be vigorous debate in the hammering out of differences to act as one. That is the essence of “the experiment” that took place in Philadelphia. It was called an experiment because it had never been done before. Self-government, of the people and by the people is a delicate balance.

IT HAS BEEN SAID MANY TIMES IN OUR COUNTRY that freedom is never safe for more than one generation. The delicate fabric of freedom cannot be stretched but slightly before it tears and comes apart. Communism, “from each according to their ability,” and “to each, according to their need,” is foolish utopianism. It always ends up with a few elitists at the top living in luxury and everyone else is a peasant slave working at the point of a government gun. Millions of people have been put to death at the hands of their government, whether communism (where the government owns the property-Stalin, Mao) or fascism (where the people own the factories but are chained to the factories to do the bidding of government. Hitler)

OUR GOVERNMENT IS NOT A PURE DEMOCRACY. It is a republic. In a pure democracy, everyone gets to vote on every bill that is being considered. A town-hall situation. Of course, that is impossible. In a republic, we elect certain ones to represent us in making new laws or disposing of old laws. We operate under a constitution that limits and defines what kind of laws may be passed.

THEN WE HAVE A SUPREME COURT WHICH SITS IN JUDGEMENT on questionable laws to see if the laws are worthy to exist. Then, we have an executive branch of government that has been elected by the people to carry out the laws that have been passed. It is not perfect. But it is the most perfect form of human government ever devised.

OUR CONSTITUTION CAN ONLY BE CHANGED SLOWLY and with the greatest input from all the people of the nation who care to vote on the ones who are then going to vote on the modifying of the Constitution. If we are arrested for breaking a law, we have a right to a speedy trial at which we may attempt to defend ourselves.

IF WE ARE CHARGED WITH A CRIME WORTHY OF DEATH or prison, then we have the right to be tried before a jury of our peers. These few words are not intended to be a total explanation of our Republic. But it is important that we understand something of the system required for us to achieve: “Out of Many: One.” E-Pluribus Unum.

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 - TUESDAY
A.M. Ecclesiastes 1-3 P.M. 2Corinthians 9
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

A Good Verse to Memorize:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:6)

Song for Today:
Battle Hymn of the Republic (5:18) (U.S. Army Field Band)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy6AOGRsR80
(You may have to adjust the volume and delete an ad.

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where were you?

9/11/2019

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Where Were You On 9/11?
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. (Psalms 33:12)
Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. (Psalms 33:18-19)

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ ABOUT 9/11/2001, you may want to go here: https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/9-11-attacks. We are reminded that the college freshmen this year were born after the attack.

BARBARA HAD RETIRED AND WE WERE ENJOYING A LEISURE MORNING when the phone rang: “Do you have your TV on?” It was our son, David. We turned on our TV and watched it all day as the whole scenario unfolded: all aircraft in America were slowly landing,… somewhere, and then were grounded. We didn’t know how big the attack was and didn’t know the ultimate target. The President and his immediate functional unit were whisked away to an undisclosed location.

AMERICA CAME TO A GRINDING HALT AS WE WAITED TO LEARN exactly what was going on in our nation. Not since Sunday morning: December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor had we been so mauled! (I remember that day very well – before television. I had just turned seven.) On 9/11, I was about to turn 67.

AMERICA WAS SUDDENLY ONE NATION AS ON THE DAY OF PEARL HARBOR. Prayer was a proper thing to do and American flags were flying everywhere: on buildings, in yards, on cars and trucks. We were a religious nation, a nation in revival and it lasted...two months? Our God thing was skin-deep; much like the days when Elijah called for a meeting on Mt. Carmel and called down fire from Heaven to consume the sacrifice.
“Jehovah, He is God! Jehovah, He is God!”

ELIJAH OUTRAN KING AHAB DOWN MT. CARMEL ahead of the downpour of rain after three years of parching drought. Ah, yes. Idolatry was so entrenched in Israel that the whole exercise was a circus and nothing more. Israel would have to taste blood and death before she would realize God was serious about repentance and turning to Him. Queen Jezebel would be thrown from a window and eaten by the dogs (all but her hands) and even then, it would be hard to give up the beloved idols that came between them and God.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE IN AMERICA to bring us to our knees in repentance? We have become a culture of death, having slaughtered over sixty million babies in the womb since 1973. All those babies were consigned to death by their mothers who signed a death certificate on their behalf. We are barbarians!

THE PLANES FLEW INTO THE TWIN TOWERS of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon and the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Terrible! But, aren’t we as great at putting people to death for our own purposes as are the Moslems? That is a hard, hard saying. But it is the truth. I am saddened by it.

GOD TOOK NOTICE OF EVERY SOUL THAT CAME TO HIM in death from the attacks on 9/11 and God also takes notice of every soul that comes to Him from the wombs of their mothers. Our nation needs to repent of its murderous binge of death. We also need to resist embracing a culture that invades nations and demands conversion or death. Ω https://www.rzim.org/resources/islam

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 - WEDNESDAY
A.M. Proverbs 19-20 P.M. 2Corinthians 3
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A Good Verse to Memorize:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:6)

Song for Today:
Battle Hymn of the Republic (5:18) (U.S. Army Field Band)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy6AOGRsR80
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the lowly locust

9/5/2019

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The Lowly Locust
And the LORD turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt. (Exodus 10:19)

Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. (Leviticus 11:22) All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume. (Deuteronomy 28:42)

LATELY, I HAVE NOTICED a few locust/cicada shells attached to trees and walls. Today, the shell in the above picture was attached to a brick of the house beside the water spigot. There are annual versions of these critters and periodic versions. Some are 17-year or 13-year singers. I have heard of 7-year locusts. The one in the picture is NOT a seventeen. Locusts are prominent in the Bible.

WE CAN'T HAVE A WATCH WITHOUT A WATCH MAKER, and we can’t have a locust without a locust maker. These marvelous little pieces of machinery come in male and female versions and appear to be knowledgeable in which kind they are. (They mate.)

McGEE COMMENTS ON THE FOUR KINDS OF LOCUSTS in the Bible: “Well, folks, you can leave all of these off my menu. However, we must note that some of them are clean. There were apparently four species of locusts. The locust was the regular species; the bald locust had a protuberance; the beetle was a locust with a protuberance and a tail; the grasshopper was a locust with a tail but without a protuberance (projection or bulge). So they were permitted to eat these four kinds of locusts.

“BUT FRIEND, IF YOU'RE HAVE ME OVER FOR DINNER, let's have something else on the menu! Although they don't appeal to me, there is nothing religiously or ceremonially unclean about them. John the Baptist had a scriptural diet when he ate locusts and wild honey.” (McGee)

WHEN I WAS 5-6 YEARS OLD, I remember a big Mulberry tree located in a lot between Grandpa’s barn and the pasture. It was also used as a hog lot. Most years, we ate the mulberries off the tree. They were an inch long, tubular, and purple. Not as good as blackberries but not bad. We were supposed to pick them off the low-hanging tree limbs and NOT to eat them off the ground because of the hog traffic. The hogs liked them too.

BUT ON THIS SPECIAL YEAR, as Mulberry season approached, I was warned not to eat the berries because it was the 17-year Locust year. The locusts supposedly laid eggs in the berries. (Present-day writers say the eggs are laid in the bark of trees.) I still don’t know for sure if eggs were in the Mulberries. I had free-range of the barn and lot and the Mulberry tree.

I THOUGHT ABOUT IT AND REACHED A "PROFESSIONAL OPINION:" “I don’t see any little eggs of any kind on the berries and even if there are eggs inside the berries, they couldn’t be all that bad because we eat hen eggs all the time. (I didn’t know why we didn’t eat bird eggs or Guinea eggs.) So, I ate until I was full and went on my way. But that was only when my mother was not in sight. “If she had been around, eating mulberries that year would have been “harmful.”

TIME HAS PASSED AND MY INTEREST IN THE 17-YEAR-LOCUST has shifted to amazement at their design and how they perpetuate themselves. (And their Designer!) A lot of design going on here. Those little creatures have some kind of calendars so accurate that almost all of them wait the full 17 years (or 13) before they come out of the ground, hatch out of their shell and become airborne; and of course, mate, lay eggs and turn it over to the new generation that will come forth in the next 17 (or 13) years. They work underground all those years digging tunnels and eating roots.

LISTEN TO THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOUNDS made by these critters. Notice that they all sing in unison, like a choir that sings together. https://www.cicadamania.com/audio/ It appears that they must attach their old shell to something to enable them to remove themselves from the old shell. Read this interesting story of the full life of the Cicada. https://www.cicadamania.com/

DO YOU REMEMBER READING THIS IN THE BIBLE? For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (Romans 1:20)

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 6, 2019 - FRIDAY
A.M. Proverbs 9-10 P.M. 1 Corinthians 15:1-32
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A Good Verse to Memorize:
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:6)

Song for Today:
Wonderful Peace (3:25) (Dick Anthony’s 16 Men)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szc9mWHNwN4
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Prophets since the world began

9/4/2019

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…Prophets Since the World Began

And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:20-21)

BARBARA AND I ARE AT ACTS 3 in our “together” daily Bible reading. We usually read one chapter a day unless it is too long. Then we read from a commentary or two to see if there’s something we should discuss or study further. These verses popped out.

FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION, we find Holy Scripture sprinkled with references to the beginning of earth and life. In today’s Scripture, Peter is preaching outside the Temple as they are about to enter it at the scheduled time of prayer. He heals a well-known lame man who has positioned himself at the gate of the Temple. It immediately attracts a growing crowd of people who rush to the scene and are astonished at what they see. Peter began to speak to them and brought them up to date on who Jesus is, whom they crucified and who was raised from the dead.

JESUS HAS ASCENDED TO HEAVEN and will remain there until it is time to begin restoring the earth to its original condition of productivity. During the thousand-year-reign of Christ on the earth, swords will be beat into pruning hooks and productive tools. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:4)

PETER POINTS OUT THAT ALL THE HOLY PROPHETS have preached the message of restoration from the time of creation. He is talking about the general time frame of beginnings. It didn’t take the human race long to misuse their freedom and descend into rebellion. Lawlessness begets violence and it wasn’t long until God had to begin sending His prophets and then came Noah, a preacher of righteousness and the flood that destroyed everyone but Noah and his family. Nevertheless, God will persist. (See also: Revelation 21:5 and 22:3)

SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN. (JOHN 3:21) Scientist and Bible Student: Henry Morris, writes: “Note that God’s prophets have been prophesying the restoration of all things ever “since the world began,” not just beginning some four billion years after the world began, as evolutionists would allege. There is no Biblical basis whatever for the notion of vast ages since creation.

“COMPARE MARK 10:6, But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. (Mark 10:6) Luke 1:70. As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: (Luke 1:70)

“IT SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED THAT THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that the earth is more than the few thousand years of recorded history. “All such age calculations that yield vast eons of time are based upon the premise of uniformitarianism, which is the belief that everything has been uniform from the beginning of time, and there has been no universal catastrophe such as the world-wide. This is an invalid assumption in light of the records of special creation and the worldwide flood of Noah’s day. See Notes on 2 Peter 3:3-6” (The Morris Defender’s Bible)
I WONDER HOW "SCIENTISTS" CAN THINK BEES, BIRDS, AND BUFFALOS made themselves and then think they are qualified to tell us how old the earth is.

Read Through the Bible in a Year
SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 - THURSDAY
A.M. Proverbs 7-8 P.M. 1 Corinthians 10:21-40
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A Good Verse to Memorize:
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4) (See Deuteronomy 8:3)

Song for Today:
How Great Thou Art (5:26) (Kim Collingsworth-Piano)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJdCIviALw4
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