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what a day that will be!

11/29/2018

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What A Day That Will Be!

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
 
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. 
 
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.  (Revelation 21:2-4)
 
THE BIGGEST DISTTORTION WE HAVE IN VIEWING THIS LIFE is the assumption that it is long and that the earth is the main place to be. A timely Christian song says: “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through. My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door and I can’t feel at home in the world, anymore.” Before we were born, we had never existed. But, after we are conceived, we shall never cease to exist. That distinguishes us from all other forms of life.
 
A MAN WAS WALKING DOWN A SIDEWALK and encountered a 12-year-old boy sitting on the curb. The man said: “Son, do you want to go to Heaven?” “No sir.” “You don’t want to go to Heaven?” “No sir!” The man was taken back and thought a few seconds. “Young man, do you mean to say that when you die you don’t want to go to Heaven?” “Oh! Yes sir! But I thought you were getting up a bus load to go this afternoon.” That about covers it.
 
GOD MADE US WITH A SENSE OF BELONGING to the earth as our home. It is only as we become acquainted with the Bible or attend funerals that we shift our sense of belonging. We are made to have a longing for “home.” Even dogs and birds have a sense of home and will defend their homes. Have you ever had a Blue Jay to attack you on the head? It’s called: “territorial.” We are territorial.
 
MY FIRST WIFE, SHIRLEY (WHO DIED IN HER SLEEP AT 49) was also having trouble with a longing for “home,” wherever it was. She came from Missouri to Chattanooga, TN to attend school, just as I had. We decided that Chattanooga was the most likely place to feel “at home.” Owning a piece of property helps one to feel “at home,” much more than renting. But the school where we felt at home was temporary. It’s gone now. Many of the school mates are in Heaven. Dr. Roberson, the founder and all the faculty are in heaven. My room mates, Bill Compton and Lindsay Terry are in Heaven.  
 
BARBARA AND I HAVE BEEN MARRIED 32 YEARS and have lived in the same house for 31 years. It feels like home, but we know it’s temporary. The cemetery joins our property and is not far to travel when our time on earth is finished. But the grave site will not be home; it will not be a final resting place. It’s temporary.
 
SINCE I WAS A KID, I have enjoyed walking through cemeteries and reading names and dates and imagining what it will look like in that place when the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ rise first. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18) It’s a habit with me and I wonder what the cemetery adjoining our property will look like at the sound of the trumpet. When I was younger, an able preacher painted a word picture of what a cemetery might look like. It said it will look “like a plowed field!” Maybe so.
 
GOD HAS A WAY OF PUTTING HIS WORK ON DISPLAY and He might just make a show of His power in the graveyards of the world. He certainly won’t try to keep it a secret when Jesus comes and resurrects the bodies of the saved and unites them with their respective spirits. There won’t be any mix-ups. That is, at the resurrection, all the spirits that are reunited with their bodies, will not get mixed up and return to the wrong body. Maybe that never bothered you?
 
WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD, the angel rolled away the stone…not so Jesus could get out…but so people could see that He was no longer in His grave. The Bible does not say, but God may open the graves, so people can see that we are not in our graves. And perhaps to show the spectators that some of the graves are NOT opened. (Graves of the unsaved.)
 
WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE GRAVE, many graves in Jerusalem were opened during the earthquake when He died. When He rose from the dead, many came out of those opened graves and showed themselves alive to many. There were a million Jews in town for the Passover Feast and when they went home, I can’t imagine them keeping all of that a secret and not telling anybody, can you?
 
And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.  (Matthew 27:51-53)
 
WHAT A DAY THAT WILL BE WHEN GOD SHOWS THE UNIVERSE, what He planned from the beginning. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep.  (1Thessalonians 4:14-15)
 
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.  (1Thessalonians 4:16-17)
 
Please notice this: “them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. God will bring the spirits/souls of the dead with Him. He does not go to the graves to “wake up” those in the graves, because the souls/spirits of the dead are not in the grave, asleep. The souls/spirits of the dead are with God/Jesus when He returns to earth. Those souls/spirits will go to the body of their origin and the bodies will come out of the graves and be reunited with the soul/spirit that God/Jesus brought with Him from Heaven.  
 
OK, ALL THESE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE have just gotten their soul/spirit/body reassembled and they’re standing beside their grave (or maybe they came out of the ocean) (or maybe their ashes have been scattered), the question remains: Where is home? That is THE question. Jesus tells us:
 
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.  (John 14:1-3)
 
ITOLD YOU ALREADY THAT THE GRAVE PLOT seems like a temporary place, to me. It’s just a holding spot while Jesus is getting my new house finished. That’s going to be my permanent address. There may not be an email address or a telephone number. I don’t know. At least, there won’t be all the fund-raising phone calls and people wanting upgrade your credit card account.
 
OUR SONG FOR TODAY HIGHLIGHTS THE MINDSET OF MILLIONS OF GOD'S PEOPLE. The chorus says: What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see; And I look upon His face, the one who saved me by his grace; When He takes me by the hand, and leads me to the promised land, what a day, glorious day, that will be. https://namethathymn.com/christian-hymns/what-a-day-that-will-be-lyrics.html
 
IVE TOLD YOU I HAVE SEEN SOME PEOPLE MIRACULOUSLY HEALED. But I have helped put many times that number in the ground and tried to comfort those sitting under the tent beside the grave; family and friends. It never ends, a steady stream of those who have breathed their last and whose spirit has departed from their bodies. But we have a blessed hope! We are going see our saved loved ones again. What a day that will be!
 
TODAY IS THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE HOME-GOING OF BARBARA'S SON: Doug Cordell. He was 24, a good athlete and good in academics, one year short of college graduation. Adult-onset diabetes shut down his body in 1981 and he was gone. His body is buried in the cemetery adjoining our house. His grave is a temporary holding place until the great day. Our great-granddaughter: Riley June Clarke, 15 months old, went home May 17, 2013. She was a lively one. She’s waiting to show us around. You’ve got your own list of loved ones and friends who are waiting for you. What a day that will be!
 
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  (John 3:16)
 
Read Through the Bible in a Year
NOVEMBER 30, 2018 – FRIDAY
 A.M Ezekiel 43-44   P.M 2Peter 2
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  (Revelation 21:2)
 
Song for Today: 
What a Day That Will Be/How Beautiful Heaven Must be (7:17)          
(David Ring & Gaither Group)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtv3uUQJPk
 You may have to adjust the volume and delete an Ad.
  
​If this song doesn’t light your fire, your wood is wet!
 
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my god is real - part 2

11/28/2018

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My God is Real – Part 2

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?  For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 
 
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.  O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!  (Psalm 8:4-9)
 
HOW DO WE KNOW WHEN SOMETHING IS REAL? When I was about 10, I visited my Aunt Esther Ramsey in Nashville, TN, for a week. I was sick with strep throat most of the time and bored. I finally told her that if I knew how to get out of town, I would just walk home (125 miles). When my appetite began coming back, I began to get hungry and spotted a bowl of fruit on the coffee table in the living room. Aunt Esther had gone shopping and I was by myself. I picked up an apple out of the fruit bowl and chomped down on it. Big mistake. It was wax. Not real. I left my teeth marks in the wax, so I turned the apple over, so it would look nice. It’s important to know if things are real.
 
THE PHILOSOPHERS IN GREECE who spent all their time probing and debating ideas left us with this word: Epistemology. It’s “a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.”
 
ATHEISTS BELIEVE THERE IS NO GOD. Agnostics say they don’t know if there is a God. They are on safer ground than the atheists. No one can be in all places of the universe at one time to see if God is there. So, when this thought began to be faced by atheists and they looked like fools, they changed from atheism to agnosticism. Atheism has fallen on hard times in the philosophical world. They are: “anti-intellectual.” It’s more honorable to be an agnostic than to be an atheist.
 
IN PART 1 OF "MY GOD IS REAL," I gave a few instances of God’s power and presence that I had witnessed, such as sudden physical healing of human bodies. This kind of proof of God being real is what Jesus referred to when He was doing miracles and people still didn’t want to believe that He was the promised Messiah, or God in the flesh.
 
SOME PEOPLE WILL NOT BE CONVINCED FROM MORE PROOF. After Jesus rose from the dead, the sky was dark for three hours, the earth shook, the veil was rent from top to bottom, the graves opened, and dead people walked out of them alive; some still would not believe but wanted to put Christians to death.
 
GOD IS A GOD OF INFINITE (UNLIMITED) VARIETY. He makes snowflakes that are not quite alike and people and cats that are similar but not quite alike. People may look a lot alike and be able to do amazingly different things. Some can sing beautifully and some can’t carry a tune in a bucket. The picture today of “the heavens’ recalls that there are no two stars alike. And God says of them: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.  (Psalm 19:1) Paul writes:
 
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)
 
GOD DOES NOT LEAVE HIMSELF WITHOUT A WITNESS. Many men (and women) will declare: “Oh, if only I had proof that there is a God…”  But, proof of God is not what they are looking for. They are looking for a god who will agree with them, a god that they can manage. It is their pride, their arrogance that is the problem. Among them are a few honest skeptics, but that is not really a problem. An honest skeptic won’t be a skeptic very long because God will see to it that they have in hand the few things they need to see that God is real.
 
WE KNOW GOD IS REAL BY LOOKING AT THE ENDLESS NUMBER OF THINGS He has designed and made. Dr. Bob Jones, founder of Bob Jones University, loved to tell of things he used to think when he was a barefooted boy, walking the dirt roads in South Alabama. I heard him tell of one such story. He would walk by a beautiful rose and declare: “God has been here. He has made and painted this beautiful rose. Only God could do that.” He looked up in the sky at night and said to himself: “I know God lives up there. I see the dew drops on His front lawn where He lives above us.” I agree with him. Seeing what God has made, is enough to convince an honest person that God is real.
 
IF YOU THINK A BIG PILE OF SCRAP METAL CAN GIVE BIRTH TO A NEW BOEING 737, ready to fly out of the junkyard, there’s something wrong with you. If you can look at a newborn baby and not know that God is real, there’s something wrong with you.
 
READING THE BIBLE HAS CONVINCED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE that God is real.
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  (Romans 10:17)
If you want to know God is real, read His word and it won’t be long until the message of the book will become real to you. This is the way it works: And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.  (John 20:30-31) 
 
The testimony of God’s witnesses convinces many that God is real. Isaiah says of one group of people: …I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. (Isaiah 66:19)
Jesus gave the Great Commission to His followers:  And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.  (Mark 16:15)
 
GOD USED THE BIG OLD COUNTRY PREACHER to convince me that God is real. God uses the testimony of people to convince other people. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.  (1John 1:3)
 
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.  (James 4:8) Ω
 
Read Through the Bible in a Year
 NOVEMBER 26, 2018 - MONDAY
 A.M Ezekiel 40   P.M 1Peter 5
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.  (John 14:10-11)
 
 Song for Today: 
How Great Thou Art (7:43) (Kim Collingsworth)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO67xEESp1M&t=83s
You may have to adjust the volume and delete Ad.

It blesses me to see people do things who believe in what they are doing. I don’t know anything about the Collingsworth family, except that she is a terrific concert pianist who plays “before the Lord.” I read that her father was a preacher and when she was three years old, he told about God giving Solomon the gift of wisdom. It struck her to talk to God, when she got home, about giving her a gift like Solomon. She wondered what she would be like when she woke up the next morning. No gift of wisdom. 

​However, when her older sister played a number on the piano, she said to herself: “I can do that.” She went to the piano and figured out where to start and played the song her sister had been playing,… like her sister had been playing it. Her mother thought the sister was still playing. I don’t doubt that God endowed her with a gift when she was three years old. God does a lot of things and one of them is to give gifts of ability to people. Matthew Henry, the famous Bible commentator was reading by the time he was three and writing by the time he was seven.
 

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my god is real

11/26/2018

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            My God is Real
Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. 
Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.  (John 14:10-11)
 
WE SPENT THANKSGIVING IN CHATTANOOGA, TN with as much family as we could get together. We were able to visit with all five of our great-grandchildren from California to North Carolina. The noise level was high and, like you, we ate all we could hold – several times. It’s good for America to renew its family ties at least once a year. It’s good to give thanks unto the Lord.
 
SATURDAY MORNING, Jim Cofield read Psalm 100 and I had a few minutes to share with the group a few highlights on why God is real to me. God is as real to me as you are, but in a different way. He is reliable. He is my past, my present and my future. God is the most reliable, unchanging thing in my life. It wasn’t always that way and I can’t tell you in one short article. But, we’ll get started. There’s enough room here to plant a seed. It’s up to you to water it.
 
SOME OF MY FAMILY, ARE ON SOLID ROCK, some are on solid ground, and some are not sure there is a rock. The young ones are working their way from learning to sit alone, to learning to crawl, how best to get on top of the dining table, how to survive without a “passie,” and all of them are trying to figure out how to have their own way and manage their parents.
 
SINCE I MET GOD IN THE BEAN MARKET IN OCTOBER 1943, God has shown Himself to me many times as I have attempted to walk with Him. Some of my walk, I wish I could do over again: more Bible, more prayer. But there remains the part that I would not change if I could. I was saved at age 9, and sure of Heaven. That is the greatest thing and I would not change that. God is real to me. All my grandchildren do not know that.
 
MANY PEOPLE KNOW A FEW THINGS ABOUT GOD IN THEIR HEAD, but God is not real to them. Things happened to Elijah and things happened in Jesus’ day and to the Apostles and early church, but that’s all locked up in a sacred book. “God is real inside the book, but not in my life where I have to live every day.” I shared with my family that our greatest need is to know that God is real; not just in Moses’ day or Jesus’ day or the Apostles’ day, but in your day; in your life. The people who knew God in the Bible were not perfect people. Most of them were common, ordinary people. Some were highly educated. Some didn’t know their right hand from their left hand. (The people Jonah preached to.)
 
WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN, I talked with Mrs. York (retired farmer’s wife) across the road from us. She told me that a few days after she gave birth to her first baby, she needed to borrow something from a neighbor across a field from her house. She left the baby and walked across the field to the neighbor’s house. A sudden rain began, and she could not afford to get wet. But she had to get back to her baby.  
 
SHE ASKED THE LORD TO KEEP HER DRY as she began walking through the rain, across the field. She got to her house and there was not a drop of rain on her clothes or head. She had a reputation for telling the truth except she had had some strange encounters with God that no one else had had. I quickly decided to learn everything I could from this woman. I would ask her questions and listen carefully as she talked.
 
FIVE YEARS LATER, I was in college and my speech teacher, Mrs. Green told a strange story one day. Her father was a farmer in Decatur, AL and taught the adult Sunday School class in his church. He and the farmers around him had all cut their hay and it lay drying in the fields. An unexpected rain was moving their way. On Saturday evening, one of Mr. Green’s neighbors talked to him at the store about the upcoming rain and was he going to get his hay in Sunday morning. He replied that he was not, that he would go to church and teach his Bible class and trust the Lord with his hay. “The hay belongs to the Lord.” The farmers began working Sunday morning, getting up their hay.
 
Sunday, about 10:30 a.m., while Mr. Green was teaching his Bible class, the bottom fell out and the rain fell on the church roof and Mr. Green had to talk above the noise. Church was over, and the rain was over. As they were eating Sunday dinner, the phone rang. It was the neighbor Mr. Green had talked to at the store. “Mr. Green, have you looked at your hay field?” “No, we’re eating dinner.” “Well, you should go look at your field.” Mr. Green finished eating and made his way to his big hay field.
 
ALL AROUND HIS HAY FIELD, THE GROUND WAS SOAKING WET, and water was running in some of the drain ditches. He opened the gate and walked into his hay field. It was dry! His whole field was dry. And all around his big hay field, in the fields of his neighbors, the ground was soaking wet.  
 
WHILE I WAS STILL A COLLEGE STUDENT, the Temple Baptist Church on Rossville Blvd. in Chattanooga, paid me to be their pianist for $15 a week. That paid for our groceries, including milk and diapers. One morning the pastor announced a special prayer request for a little girl in Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. She had gone blind.
 
AS 300 PEOPLE PRAYED, many of us on our knees, the phone rang in the church office behind the choir. Someone ran to answer the phone and in 3-4 minutes came back and whispered in the pastor’s ear. The pastor went to the pulpit and announced to the praying people that the call was from a nurse at the hospital and they had just discovered that the little girl could see, and the doctors were amazed by it.
 
ABOUT 18 YEARS LATER, I was with a dozen or so pastors and a few church members who had gone to a house on Blue Ridge Parkway, above Winston-Salem, NC. The family was away, and we were using their house for three days of fasting and prayer. We were limiting our diet to water and orange and apple and grape juices. On the third day, we had our last juice and were about to pray. “Does anyone have anything you want us to pray about?”
 
A YOUNG MAN NAMED: "JACK" 19-20 years old was there with a broken leg. A motorcycle had slipped out from under him and skidded to a stop with his leg under the motorcycle. X-rays showed that the bones in his leg were broken and crushed from his ankle, all the way up his leg. Doctors put a cast on the leg but had to take it off and wrap his leg in a stretch bandage. Jack asked if we would pray about his leg. He was in danger of losing his leg.  
 
WE GATHERED AROUND JACK AND PUT OUR HANDS ON HIM,wherever we could find a place. MY hands were around his leg just below his knee, on the calf of the leg. After we had prayed a few minutes, I distinctly remember feeling heat come from his leg and said to myself: “This sure is a warm-blooded dude.”  We finished praying and everyone stood up…but Jack. He just sat there, staring out through the picture window of the living room. His pastor said: “Jack! Are you alright?” Jack said: “I think God just healed my leg!” 
 
JACK STOOD UP AND GENTLY BOUNCED A BIT on his feet and then began walking around and JUMPED up and down on his feet. We all came unglued. I was at his church a couple of weeks later to speak and sat down beside Jack on the front pew. While they were singing, I leaned over and said: “Jack…are you still healed?” He smiled big and said almost out-loud: “Yes I am!”
 
A FEW YEARS LATER, FOLLOWING THE FLU, I got a case of Guillain Berre’. “French Polio.” I was partially paralyzed. In a couple of days, it hit me again. Much pain. I couldn’t hold a tooth brush. I put a pillow between my knees to dull the pain. It was the week-end and no doctors were available, so I toughed it out. The 2nd attack hit my eyes and pulled the right eye inward, leaving me seeing double.
 
ONE OF THE BEST OPHTHAMOLOGISTS IN CHATTANOOGA (who taught the subject in medical school) said the nerves in my eyes were damaged. She referred me to a neurologist who checked my legs by inserting needles and injecting surges of electricity. A spinal tap confirmed I had Guillian Berre’. The ophthalmologist said, “It will take several months, maybe six months for this to heal…if it heals. You will need to come back every two weeks and let me plot the progress. She shined a bright light into my eye and recorded how well my eye could follow the light.
 
I READ AN ARTICLE IN READER'S DIGEST (BY COVERING ONE EYE) about “The Woman in Bed 10.” She had it much worse than I. If Guillian Berre’ hits the inner chest muscles, it can paralyze the lungs or heart and would be fatal. I wore a heart monitor for several days. A team of blood specialists came in and explained that they might have to remove all my blood and “scrub” my blood in a special machine. I resigned myself to their diagnosis. I had to wear an eye patch over that eye if I rode in a car because seeing double was excruciating. The brain could not unscramble and interpret the double images that fast.
 
IN A FEW DAYS THE FLU SYMPTOMS SUBSIDED and I tried walking. I could only scoot my feet, 8-10” at a time. I could not step up on a curb. I got hold of a car and pulled myself onto a curb with my arms and hands. Very painful. After a few days I began to be depressed. I was determined to walk around a long block. The smallest dip or hump in the pavement would put me on the ground. A couple of times I fell when an oncoming car was near, and I managed to throw myself toward the side of the road away from the car.  
 
ON JANUARY 1, 1987, ABOUT 11:00 O'CLOCK, I was scooting my feet along the street and looked at “two” trees at the end of the block. It was actually one tree that I was seeing twice. I began to talk to the Lord in a severe desperation, so deep and intense that I could not have worked it up. Suddenly, the two trees became one tree. I looked around, slowly, and all the “two’s” of everything were now “ones.” 
 
I KNEW THAT THE LORD HAD TOUCHED MY EYES and straightened them. What might have taken six months and maybe never would have taken place, took place in five seconds. When Barbara came home from work, she noticed it immediately: “Your eyes are straight!”  Yes, my eyes were straight. I didn’t need to go back to the ophthalmologist, so I didn’t go. I should have, as a testimony of what God had done, but I was done with it. So, I didn’t go back.
 
DID I LEARN THROUGH ALL OF THOSE THINGS, beginning with Mrs. York walking through the rain without getting wet…did I learn anything? Yes indeed! I learned that God is real, not just in Elijah’s day or in Jesus’ day, or in the days of the Apostles. God is real in my day. These were token manifestations of God’s presence and power. They didn’t happen every day. These were special times when God revealed Himself at my point of great need and to carry out His purpose.

THE REST OF MY BODYY HEALED SLOWLY over a period of two years and my legs never completely healed. It would baffle a doctor as to how the healing was selective and sudden and the rest of my body was not affected by it.

SEVERAL OTHER STORIES COME TO MIND but this is all I have room for today. I hope you like the song. You may want to file this article where you can remember to read it again. I think you will want to see this 7-minute story told by the man it happened to: the Gunnar Olson Plastic Bag Testimony:  https://youtu.be/teKv2EIqN4I 

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.  (James 4:8) Ω
 
Read Through the Bible in a Year
 NOVEMBER 26, 2018 - MONDAY
  A.M Ezekiel 36-37   P.M 1Peter 3
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.  (John 14:10-11)
 
 
Song for Today: 
My God Is Real (3:34) (John Starnes & Gaither Gathering)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPVxtUEeYM4
                    You may have to adjust the volume and delete Ad.

NOTE: This theme (and song) have been driving me for several days. I needed to find someone who would sing it with sincerity and conviction. I don’t like singers who are more clown or comedian than singer, or who don’t know why they are there.  A lot of people have sung this song on YouTube, but I was disappointed with the insincerity.

​This is a special song that claims God is real. Then it should be sung like it. The face should reflect awe. I don’t like for singers to add so much to the song that you can’t recognize the song. So, it took me a half-hour to decide on John Starnes. He does a little improvising, but I’ve never doubted John’s sincerity. He’s a very gifted tenor. I heard this song by another singer when I was a teenager and it has stuck with me for 70 years.
 
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thanksgiving day 2018

11/21/2018

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Thanksgiving Day 2018

Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him and bless his name.  (Psalm 100:3-4)
 
THE PILGRIMS WHO CAME HERE and inaugurated the first Thanksgiving celebration, were thankful for food and survival of a harsh winter. But their Thanksgiving involved far more than food and friendship with the local Indians. Things were really bad back there where they came from: prison and death.
 
THEY HAD RISKED THEIR LIVES FOR THE FREEDOM TO WORSHIP and serve God as their conscience directed them. See this short historical summary, by CBN NEWS, of the harsh reality of the Old World from which they came that propelled them to endure such hardship. (There is a brief ad at the beginning.) You may want to keep this link for future reference and review.
 
Brutal Old World Helped the Pilgrims Shape a Glorious New World 
 
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/video?video=494216
  
Read Through the Bible in a Year
 NOVEMBER 22, 2018 - THURSDAY
 A.M Ezekiel 27-28   P.M James 4
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.  (Psalm 100:4)
 
Song for Today:
 Come, Ye Thankful People, Come (2:54) (St. George’s – Windsor)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3n7IUCdqAM&t=32s
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ALFORD WROTE "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" in 1844 while he was the rector of Aston Standford church in Buckinghamshire, England.[2] It was first published in Hymns and Psalms in 1844 with seven verses under the title "After Harvest".[1] "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" was set to George J. Elvey's hymn tune St. George's, Windsor in 1858.[  (Wikipedia)
 
 
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the instruments of thanksgiving

11/20/2018

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The Instruments of Thanksgiving

Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. (Psalm 100:2-5)

OUR THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY IN AMERICA  gets its background from Psalm 100 and other Old Testament references to thanksgiving and praise, and the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. It is a time of thanking God for a harvest of food and survival of the pilgrims, aided by friendly Indians in the early colonies.

SOME AMERICAN MONEY CRUNCHERS ARE ESTIMATING that Americans will spend “$991 million dollars on turkeys this year” (2018). That sounds high for just the turkeys and may include the whole turkey-centered meal. The average family is projected to spend $175.00 for Thanksgiving food. Most American money for Thanksgiving is spent on travel and then food. Our financial recovery is boosting travel and celebration of Thanksgiving. Football games and Thanksgiving parades, televised nationwide, have become a staple of stimulation for this much-loved holiday. National celebrations were God’s idea in the time of Moses and it has continued to this day.

IT'S HARD TO SAY HOW MUCH OF THE CELEBRATION has anything to do with thanking God or worshiping Him in Spirit and in truth. Probably, very little, except among the true believers in Christ who take the celebration seriously. Americans have been scattered all over the map all year long and are ready for returning to their roots and hearths for renewing of family ties and a bit of feasting.

OUR JEWISH CONNECTION TO AMERICAN THANKSGIVING can be summarized as written by Kevin L. Howard and Marvin Rosenthal, in their book: “The Feasts of the Lord,” (Thomas Nelson, Pub. C.1997). “The seventh and final feast given to Israel by the Lord is known as Sukkot or “The Feast of Tabernacles.” It is the most joyful and festive of all Israel’s feasts. It is also the most prominent feast, mentioned more often in Scripture than any of the other feasts. This feast also served as the historical backdrop for the important teaching of the Messiah in John, chapters 7-9.”

PSALM 100 IS IN THE SETTING OF THE JEWISH TEMPLE in Jerusalem and is a service manual for public, corporate, worshipping of God. I had first written as a title: The Attitude of Thanksgiving, and then changed it to “instruments of Thanksgiving.”  Whoever the writer of the Psalm, (David?) he charges into his writing by using such words as “gladness,” “singing,” “thanksgiving,” “praise,” and “bless his name.”

THE UNDERGIRDING OF THANKSGIVING is honest and sincere praise of God from the heart. That is the attitude. The reason for those things is that the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. Those who know nothing or not much about the Lord, may not be impressed with such high and lofty words. McGee summarizes it:

“THIS IS THE WAY GOD WANTS YOU TO COME INTO HIS PRESENCE. Someone told me the other day that he attended the services of one of the great churches of the past and had never witnessed a place that was so dead. Do you know what the problem was? People were not coming to church with praise in their hearts. They did not come to the service with thankfulness in their hearts to God. They did not enter His gates with thanksgiving. If you go to church on Sunday to worship, make sure you go with thanksgiving and praise in your heart. If you fail to do that, you are not going to be very helpful to your church.”

YOU MAY WANT TO FOLLOW THIS LINK to read Chas. Spurgeon’s comments on Psalm 100: https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=spur&b=19&c=100
 
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Read Through the Bible in a Year
       NOVEMBER 21, 2018 - WEDNESDAY
       A.M Ezekiel 24-26   P.M James 3
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.  (Psalm 100:4)
 
Song for Today: 
Great Is Thy Faithfulness (2:09) (Calv.Christian Sch. 1st & 2nd Grade)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va2X6fJRVY4
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You will want to hear these 1st and 2nd grade children sing this old hymn.
 
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LEARNING TO BE THANKFUL

11/19/2018

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        Learning to be Thankful… 
Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. (Psalm 100:2-5)
 
WHEN BABIES ARE BORN, they come with a certain number and kind of bones, two eyes, one nose and one mouth and two ears. Then we get down to counting fingers and toes and a hundred other things that only a pediatrician has names for. One thing a baby is not equipped with is a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving. They are born without any knowledge of God. They have to be taught those things.

A YOUNG COUPLE GETS MARRIED AND FOR A WHILE they are the center of the universe and everything revolves around them. But when the first baby is born, the couple’s universe evaporates and is no more. A new boss has moved in and the couple will now sleep when the baby says they can sleep. The couple can eat after, and only after, the new center of the universe is full, comfortable, and has need of nothing. To think of this new little, cute, sweet, cuddly person turning into a “thankful” individual is a stretch.

OH, IT CAN HAPPEN, OFTEN HAPPENS and the baby slowly turns into a thankful human being. Be assured of this one very big thing: every baby is born with a will of his/her own and the child, the wonderful child, is going to explore a thousand ways to exercise their God-given will and…rule…everyone they possibly can.

IT'S A HARD THING TO MOVE FROM BEING THE FAMILY BOSS to humbly, sweetly, habitually saying: “thank you.” The child has an entitlement mentality and like shedding diapers, the entitlement mentality must be balanced out with duty and performance.

IT IS GOD'S PLAN THAT PARENTS CARE FOR THE NEEDS OF THE CHILD; food, housing, clothing and many other things that only parents can do. The government is not equipped to raise a child. Beyond the duty to care for the physical needs of the child is the parents’ duty to train the child to know and obey the Lord, respect other people, including other children and to embrace their ever-growing duties.

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS A CHILD NEEDS TO LEARN is to say “thank you” for a stick of gum and to respect the one who gave it. Character training is as important as food. If the parents do not teach character to their children, the police may have to do the job for the parent. But prisons are not equipped to raise, or train children and prisons rarely can reform a young person. Rather, they most often learn how to be a more highly skilled criminal while in jail while their teachers are locked up with them.

WHEN I WAS A PASTOR AND MY CHILDREN WERE SMALL, people would slip them a piece of gum or a piece of candy. Of course, the sugar would wind them up, but I watched to see if they would say “thank you.” I was the “thank you” cop. Before I was grown, I knew for certain that if a child was not trained to say “thank you” for a stick of gum, they were being trained to be a self-centered little criminal and that trait would go with them wherever they went.

MY MAMA AND DADDY TAUGHT ME LITTLE CIVIL THINGS LIKE "THANK YOU" and how to use a knife and fork and spoon and simple table manners. They assigned me little jobs to do and taught me to work and be responsible for my duties. It helped me to be comfortable and secure with other people and gave me self-respect. Children should be taught to help keep the house clean and how to prepare little simple meals. Mama may get sick and children need to know how to pick up the slack and get things done. That’s part of being a family.

CHILDREN SHOULD BE TAUGHT HOW A FAMILY FUNCTIONS and why everyone should do their job in the home. It is bad to teach a child that they have no duty but everyone else has the duty to serve them. Not good! There’s an old Jewish proverb: “The father who does not teach his son a trade, teaches him to steal.”

SAYING "GRACE" BEFORE EVERY MEAL IS VITAL TRAINING for a young child. It should be gentle, loving, and kind. It should also be firm and regular. “This is what we do, and this is how we do it.” The training of children in social graces will not save their eternal soul, but it will train them to respect the presence of other people and to be mindful of the presence of God, whom they cannot see. 

WE BOW OUR HEAD AND SAY: "God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food. By His hand we must be fed; thank you Lord for daily bread. In Jesus name, Amen.”

AFTER A WHILE, THE OLDEST CHILD CAN BE ASKED: “Do you want to lead us in thanking God for our food?” Not to be pushy; not a forced thing. But, in a natural way, sooner or later the child will begin to take their place in the family and praying to God and will feel comfortable in hearing their voice speak to the God they cannot see.

LET'S TEACH OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO BE THANKFUL. Don’t be surprised if when they have visitors and they are playing family, that they include saying grace at whatever they pretend is their table. Ω
 

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READ THE BIBLE THROUGH IN A YEAR
NOVEMBER 20, 2018 - TUESDAY
 A.M Ezekiel 22-23   P.M James 2
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.  (Psalm 100:4)
 
Song for Today: 
Steal Away to Jesus (2:03) (Calv. Mem. Quartet)  
https://www.facebook.com/100009410046480/videos/2393175661006079/
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the rock from medlock

11/19/2018

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       The Rock from Medlock…
 
From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.  (Psalm 61:2)
 
I’VE CLIMBED THIS MOUNTAIN at Stone Mountain, Georgia. It is “higher than I.”  The small quarried rock in the lower picture is from the chimney that stood at the end of the house in which I was born and lived for eight years, in Medlock Hollow at Alpine, Tennessee. The house was built before the Civil War Between the States.

THE DINING ROOM FEATURED THE FIREPLACE to the chimney and in its ceiling were several bullet holes from the Civil War. Soldiers were looking for some men and thought they might be in the attic. But, to avoid the risk of being shot if they stuck their heads up in the attic, they simply walked around in the room and shot up through the ceiling.

A LIMESTONE CHIMNEY WOULD REQUIRE CUT STONE from a rock quarry and would be quite expensive. Most rock chimneys were made from sandstone rocks taken from a river or creek bed. I never understood how our house rated a limestone chimney. Grandpa’s daddy owned the house. He and his wife died there. His daddy died from a rattlesnake bite in Oklahoma while visiting his daughter.

THEY WERE ABLE TO SAVE MY GREAT-GRANDPA and told him not to ever get hot. But, after returning home, in 1925, he was determined to help with a brush fire where they were clearing a field up on the side of the mountain. He got hot; his tongue swelled out of his mouth and choked him to death.
 
MY GRANDPA BUILT A NEW HOUSE 100 yards down the hill in 1896. He and Grandma birthed and raised a family of three, including my mother. Grandpa finished the third grade and was able to read and write. He and my mother got typhoid fever out of the well and almost died. I remember Medlock Hollow as a lively place in summers when kinfolk gathered in from Michigan and Nashville and my cousins came in and took over.

MEDLOCK WAS MY PLACE AND I HAD TO BE PATIENT until the intruders left. It had its rewards. We bought 10-cents worth of ice and kept it in a quilt in a tub in the cellar. That kept us in iced tea, which I dearly loved. When the ice was gone, someone would drive 12 miles to Livingston and buy another 10-cents worth of ice and we had homemade ice cream. We already had plenty of milk and deep-yellow eggs. Gasoline was 23-cents a gallon and bottle cokes were a nickel. We had to go somewhere to get a coke because the six-pack hadn’t been invented yet.
  
MY DADDY WAS A SAWMILL MAN and we lived in Medlock while Daddy was off somewhere running his sawmill. We went bankrupt in Medlock in 1939, during the depression. There was a false recovery in 1938, toward in the end of the ten-year Depression, and then a sharp drop. My daddy had a yard of lumber that wouldn’t sell when the housing market crashed. We did get two new outdoor toilets out of one stack of lumber. Some men came by from the WPA and built them for us, using our lumber. That was the September when Hitler invaded Poland and the stage was set for the beginning of World War II.

ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1941, it was unseasonably warm, but we knew a cold front was coming so we worked all Sunday afternoon getting in firewood. The news had come in on the battery radio after we got back from church at Falling Springs Baptist Church that Pearl Harbor was being bombed. I had never heard of Pearl Harbor, but it must be pretty bad the way the grownups were reacting to the news. A lot changed on that day. Grandma was being treated for something and it turned out to be cancer. She died before Christmas in 1941.

MEDLOCK HOLLOW. It should have been called: The Medlock University because that’s where I learned the foundational things of my life. I learned my letters off the lard bucket and baking powder can in the kitchen by kerosene lamp. Well, there were a few letters like Q and Z that weren’t in the kitchen. My mother kindled a fire about 4:00 a.m. and got breakfast going by 4:30.

THE SMELL OF COFFEE AND OATMEAL always woke me up and I slipped into the kitchen to watch Mama and work on my letters. We had a dozen men in the back yard, bedded down in a shack made of sawmill slabs. Mother cooked their breakfast and packet their lunch in 4-pound lard buckets. In mid-afternoon, she fired up the stove for supper. The men worked hard and ate hard.

OUR FRONT PORCH WAS THE LENGTH OF THE HOUSE and the men would sit out there and light up. They threw their cigarette butts off the porch. I watched them roll their cigarettes out of the little sacks of tobacco. I decided that if I gathered up the butts, I could get enough tobacco to make me a cigarette. I got the paper out of daddy’s shirt pocket after he went to sleep. Matches…that was the scary part. Striking a kitchen match was new to me.  But I soon had it mastered.

I DIDN'T KNOW WHY THEY WENT TO ALL THAT TROUBLE. It didn’t taste too good. And….my mother smelled it on my breath. Five. Before I started school.

IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR MY NEW FRIENDS AT SCHOOL, I would have dropped the whole thing. Smoking was the way you reached manhood. At school, some of the boys in the first and second grade brought their own tobacco and at recess, went to the boy’s outhouse and smoked down there. The teacher never checked on us or said anything. We were becoming men at the outhouse.

GRANDMA DIED BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN 1941. Grandpa died in 1954. But things took a little twist. Daddy’s daddy had died in 1938 and his mother stayed with us now and then. When mother’s mother died in 1941, Daddy’s mother and Mother’s daddy….married. My mother and daddy became step-brother and sister. That made my mother to be also my aunt because she was my daddy’s sister, and Daddy became my uncle because he was my mother’s brother. My daddy became my uncle because he was the brother to my mother. And my brother and I became first cousins and I became my own first cousin because I was the son of my aunt and uncle…all of it “step” kin.

MY BROTHER (10 YEARS OLDER THAN ME) BOUGHT THE FARM but that didn’t last long. It changed hands several times. When my children were twelve, or so, and younger, I took them to Medlock and no one lived there. We walked up in the hollow, armed with a 22 rifle and we needed it to shoot a rattlesnake. The first shot went down the throat of the snake but didn’t kill it and I finally ended up smashing the snake’s head with a big flat rock. We took the 10 rattles and a button home with us.

THAT WAS ABOUT THE SAME SPOT where “me and Grandpa” were picking blackberries, years earlier. Grandpa carried an ax with him and a water bucket for the berries. Suddenly, he stopped picking and said quietly: “Look over there.” On the other side of the black berries was a five-foot rattlesnake, stretched out. He said, “Leave him alone and pick your berries.” When the two-gallon bucket was full of big, luscious berries, he set the berries several feet away under a tree, picked up the axe and cut a good-size sapling.

HE QUIETLY WALKED OVER TO THE SNAKE and with a few licks had put the snake out of business before it could coil up to fight. I learned something that day. If he had killed the snake first, he might have knocked half the berries off onto the ground beyond our reach. By picking the berries first, we got the berries AND the rattlesnake. I remembered that many times later in dealing with problems. My grandpa was a smart professor. I often said to myself: “What would Grandpa do?”

A FEW YEARS LATER WE WENT BACK FOR ANOTHER VISIT. Grandpa’s house had burned and the new owners had moved a mobile home there. The old house I had been born in, had rotted down and a concrete slab had been poured to build another house. The track of a snake had been made in the wet concrete as it had crawled across the slab.

NO ONE WAS HOME IN THE MOBILE HOME. Up on the hill where the new slab had been poured, half the limestone chimney was still standing. Some of the stones had been taken away. I spotted a piece of stone and took it with me. I stopped at the mobile home and left a note that we had been there and that we had taken a stone from the chimney. Later, we made contact and the lady has been on Morning Minute for several years now. We haven’t communicated in a while and I hope she is ok.  We went back a third time, and no one was home. A new house had been built on the concrete slab.

IT WAS AT FALLING SPRINGS BAPTIST CHURCH that I first learned about Jesus, the Rock and the importance of a house being built on a rock. Grandpa knew that, and he only had a third-grade education. When he died, the church house was full and running over. He was a community and family rock. He wasn’t bossy, but he knew where his boundaries were, and you didn’t cross them. He was a rock, and he knew The Rock.

BUT, MY MAIN INTRODUCTION TO THE ROCK, was my 2nd grade teacher: Miss Vaughn. She had us to memorize John 3:16 and recite it every day for four months. And the next four months we recited John 3:17 with it.

WE MOVED AFTER THAT TO MOUNTAIN CITY, TENNESSEE where my daddy ran a dogwood mill that made shuttles for weaving cloth: tents, uniforms, parachutes and bedding for soldiers. My 3rd grade year was bad. I wanted to be accepted by the new boys in the new place and I practiced cussin’ so I could be one of them. I didn’t yet know the Lord, although I knew John 3:16-17.  I learned to cuss real good. The next year, in October, 1943, a maverick Presbyterian preacher held a meeting in a bean market. Farmers sold their bean crops in that market.

WHEN THE FROST CLOSED DOWN THE BEAN PICKING, Dan Graham began the meeting. I went every night to hear the stories he told. I got saved and went to school the next day telling everybody about it. Several days I told them. They had had enough of my preaching and at recess one morning, the boys put me on the ground and worked me over pretty good.

I THOUGHT EVERYBODY WOULD BE GLAD to hear the Jesus story and want to get saved. Well, it didn’t turn out that way. But I’ve just continued to tell the story to anybody that would listen, ‘cause it’s the best story I ever heard; 75 years now.

THIS THANKSGIVING, I HAVE A LOT TO BE THANKFUL FOR. Actually, I have Thanksgiving every time I walk by that limestone rock at the corner of our house that came out of the chimney in Medlock Hollow where I was born. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I did have the advantage of being born in Medlock Hollow. I go back there a lot, almost every day and visit my heritage. It also reminds me of the Rock that is higher than I. Ω
 

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Read Through the Bible in a Year
 NOVEMBER 19, 2018 - MONDAY
 A.M Ezekiel 20-21   P.M James 1
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize:  
From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.  (Psalm 61:2)
 
Song for Today: 
Lead Me to the Rock (3:27) (Stephen Hill & Gaither Group)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmHBj_WeBmY     
 You may have to adjust the volume and delete Ad.

Many people have posted their version of Lead Me to the Rock on YouTube. I’m picky, and often disappointed in selecting music. Sometimes I spend a half-hour looking for a song.  I audited 12-15 groups and settled on Stephen Hill and the Gaither Group. Stephen is a gifted tenor and a bit rowdy in his singing style…was probably that way when he was three. I learned this song from a quartet in a library of music I bought before any of my children were born, maybe from J. T. Adams, 62 years ago.

As we approach Thanksgiving, I have to go back to my roots at Medlock and to a rock I brought from there that’s at the corner of our house in the flower bed at Flat Rock. I look at it every few days and remember where I came from, God’s perfect place for me, and the root of my thanksgiving. 
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FEEDING THE POOR...

11/16/2018

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Feeding the Poor…
 
And when the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place.
 
But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes; except we should go and buy meat for all this people. For they were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company. And they did so, and made them all sit down.
 
Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude. And they did eat, and were all filled: and there was taken up of fragments that remained to them twelve baskets.  (Luke 9:12-17)
 
ALL OF THIS FIVE THOUSAND WERE NOT DIRT-POOR, not destitute in that the disciples suggested to Jesus that He send them away to get (buy) food. The disciples were assuming they could buy food if they could find food. Most, if not all of the “lodging places” would have been in the open, on the ground. But in the surrounding towns and country around the towns, it would have been much safer from robbers and wild animals to sleep on the ground there. They all would not have gone to one town but “towns.” It would have been a challenge for even several towns to have fed five thousand people had they done what the disciples were suggesting.

THE DISCIPLES WERE NOT SPIRITUAL MEN, AT THIS TIME, but they were indeed mature men of the world who knew how things worked and what a practical solution would be to feed and bed-down five thousand people. We notice also, that the disciples, at this point in time, were not well-acquainted with their chosen leader and their imagination was not big enough to think that Jesus could do anything about the on-coming problem of night-fall and five thousand people hungry people stranded in the dark.

LET'S GIVE THEM CREDIT FOR GOING TO THE LIMIT OF THEIR IMAGINATION on what could and should be done. Then, we notice the patience of Jesus in letting them empty themselves of thought. That’s a good thing to remember today when minds are making an effort to come together. How often does God let us ramble on in our prayers while we say almost nothing and advise God on how to meet our needs. Jesus is patient with us as He was patient with the disciples, in over their heads.

IN THIS STORY, WE SEE THAT JESUS WAS SENSITIVE TO HUNGRY PEOPLE AND CHOSE to feed these hungry people, even though some of them might have been able to buy it for themselves. But we may not assume that ALL of them had enough money with them to buy food. As in any crowd of 5,000 people today, some of them would have had no money to buy food. God made us to hunger and that motivates us to work to meet that need. What if some are not able to work enough to earn money for food?

JESUS' HALF-BROTHER, JAMES WROTE THESE WORDS: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?  (James 2:15-16)

I HAVE PULLED THIS OUT OF CONTEXT. Nevertheless, the point James makes is easy to see, that talking about feeding and clothing someone does not get the job done. Talk is cheap. “God bless you brother, God understands that you are hungry and naked,” as though that will fix the problem. Proverbs is much older than the book of James and the writer understood the problem. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and tomorrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.  (Proverbs 3:27-28)
 
JESUS NOTED THAT...the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.  (John 12:8) This story is also included in Matthew and Mark and is on the occasion when Mary anoints the feet of Jesus with expensive ointment.

WIERSBE NOTES THAT: “The account of Mary’s anointing of her Lord is found also in Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9. But it must not be confused with the account given in Luke 7:36-50, where a former harlot anointed Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Mary was a virtuous woman, and she anointed Jesus in the house of Simon the (former) leper (Mark 14:3). The Luke 7:1-50 event took place in Galilee, while the account we are now considering occurred in Judea.

CHRISTIANS HAVE BEEN AND WILL ALWAYS BE FACED WITH THE FACT that if we look around, we will find people too poor to eat well, regularly. It’s more acute on holidays when some are feasting, and others are not. We should be mindful of those who do not have enough to eat, especially children and widows. Part of the war stories are always about hungry children, especially. American G.I.s are known for sharing their K-Rations with hungry children. And at times, when possible, supplying truck loads of food to the civilians in the areas they have just overrun. I’ve been hearing these stories ever since the beginning of World War2.

ON APRIL 27, 2011, SAND MOUNTAIN, ALABAMA was hit hard with four separate tornadoes. At least two of them went all the way into the edge of Chattanooga. This link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Poa83oJwQ shows some of the damage but only some. Forty-six people died that day in our immediate area of 7 or 8 miles. Altogether, on that day in North-East Alabama, 62 (sixty-two) tornadoes were recorded by the weather bureau.

IN OUR PART OF THE TRAGEDY ON SAND MOUNTAIN, the stunned people came together to weep, to bury their dead, to pray for injured survivors (a baby was found in the top of a tree, still alive, wrapped in a blanket) and to wonder where their next meal was coming from since there was no power and frozen food could not be eaten for long and there was no way for most people to cook anything.

THE HIGH-VOLTAGE TOWERS THAT CARRIED ELECTRIC POWER from Widows Creek Steam Plant in Stevenson, Alabama were on the ground, twisted, demolished. Did you ever hear live power lines on the ground bellowing like a bull? It takes several weeks to restore towers and power lines. We were not home. When we arrived home in a few days, our house was ok but the food in the freezer was a stinking mess. A few miles from here, a short-handle shovel was driven through a tree about 10’ above ground. It’s still in the tree. I saw it not long ago, seven years after the storm. Sand Mountain is a magnet for tornadoes and the weather scientists are trying to figure it out.

A FEEDING STATION WAS SET UP IN FLAT ROCK and hundreds of people ate there as 2-3 big vans with generators and cooking equipment came and operated at the Flat Rock Rotary Club Building. Nobody was fussing. It was quiet. People were subdued. But, there also arose out of that tragedy a community spirit that has continued to this day.

THE METHODIST CHURCH GAVE A PIECE OF LAND TO THE YOUNG COMMUNITY CENTER. Concrete was poured, and a metal building was erected. Individuals gave money and labor. Churches contributed. We have a walk-in freezer and will soon have a walk-in refrigerator for produce. That will be a blessing because sometimes produce becomes available free or at a low price and it helps feed hungry families. Only about four churches help with people and money.

IT BECAME EVIDENT THAT THERE ARE AT LEAST 230 FAMILIES around Flat Rock that need help to meet the challenge of the fourth week in the month. That need has nothing to do with a tornado. Sand Mountain is like many communities in America today where grandparents are on minimal Social Security and are raising grandchildren. There’s a garden variety of reasons for this: drugs, prisons, divorce, sickness, highway accidents. And in the middle of this, there are a few who sponge off the system. That’s their problem, between them and God.

WE SEE CHILDREN AND WIDOWS AND OLD PEOPLE AND DISABLED PEOPLE who depend on the Community Center for the 4th week of every month. On Tuesday before Thursday food day, two people take the big box truck to a food bank and and pick up 3-4 tons of canned, boxed, frozen and bagged food. I believe God is pleased with this project and has sustained it with helpers and money for these seven-plus years now.

TODAY IS FOOD DAY. The picture below shows a group of teenagers filling food tubs in the Community Center as the tubs move along on rollers. Each tub holds three brown grocery bags of food. The tubs will turn right and go out the door where another crew will empty the tubs into the waiting vehicles driving through the carport. Each person that receives food has previously registered and proven their need.

MANY OF THEM HAVE NO VEHICLE OF THEIR OWN and neighbors are helping them. Today, a frozen turkey or ham is scheduled to be included in each food tub. It’s a week before Thanksgiving and this gives the families some time to plan their Thanksgiving meal. In December the food is given out a week before Christmas. It takes twenty people to run the food line.

ALL YEAR-LONG, PEOPLE DROP OFF USED CLOTHING AND SMALL ITEMS that are resaleable and a volunteer crew of ladies work every Tuesday, to go through the big bags of clothing and shoes, hanging up the clothes on racks in the store in the front of the building. It reminds me of a mini-Goody’s store. Then, volunteers take turns running the store on Thursday-Saturday. Clothing, shoes, books, decorative pieces, etc. are sold at a very low price.

THE MONEY FROM THAT IS USED TO BUY FOOD TO GIVE OUT ON FOOD DAY. All of it is volunteer. Several things must work right for the food to be there to go out the door on food day. We are thankful to have had a part in this effort for several years.

WE MUST KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS KIND OF EFFORT IN FEEDING THE POOR goes on all over the United States. There are hundreds and hundreds of similar operations going on all over America. We can sing joyfully: “God Bless America,” and “My Country Tis of Thee I Sing.”

AND SOME PEOPLE WOULD LIKE TO DESTROY AMERICA BECAUSE THEY ARE JEALOUS, critical and mean-spirited. It is a dangerous time now when many of the young people who know so little, think we should embrace socialism. It has never worked in any country. Eventually the country that goes into socialism ends up like Venezuela where everyone is poor and hungry. Instead of sharing wealth, they share poverty and desperation.

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, PRIME MINISTER OF ENGLAND, SAID: “If you’re not a socialist when you are young, something is wrong with your heart. If you’re still a socialist when you are fifty, there’s something wrong with your head.” Margaret Thatcher, later Prime Minister of England said: “The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”  God bless America, land that we love: the hardest working and most generous nation in the world. Ω
 
Read Through the Bible in a Year
 NOVEMBER 15, 2018 - THURSDAY
 A.M   Ezekiel 10-12    P.M Hebrews 11:1-19
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  (Proverbs 3:5-6)
 
Song for Today: 
The Stranger by the Blue Galilee (1:39) (Roloff)  
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w-E7-TyaNg  
 You may have to adjust the volume and delete Ad.

Brother Roloff is in good voice this morning. I played for him several times in Bible conferences in Florida; always a split-second behind him. He made up his own time as he went through the song. It was not necessary to play exactly the notes he was singing; just don’t clash with him and that was easy enough. I still miss him. The wing of his plane was ripped off at 20,000 feet in a violent storm. When they found him, he was lying face-down, clutching his King-James Bible. (He would want me to say that.) Girls from the home (3-4) were also killed.
 
 
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them that honor me...

11/12/2018

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                      Them That Honor Me…                            
…them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.  (1Samuel 2:30)

ELI WAS THE LORD'S HIGH PRIEST. He knew a lot about being the High Priest and knew a lot about the law of God. But he was an easy-going kind of man and this carried over into his relationship with his sons who were also in the priesthood. His sons were bad apples and Eli was a softie with their bad behavior.

ELI'S SONS WERE CUTTING THEMSELVES SOME CHOICE RAW MEAT before the fat was burned off.  That violated God’s explicit commands.  In verse 22 we learn that his sons were picking out women at the door of the Tabernacle to have sex with.  Eli knew about these things but did not restrain his sons. He should have put them out of the priesthood as an example to the rest of the priests. Finally, God’s patience ran out with Eli.

And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house?  And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel?  (1Samuel 2:27-28)

● And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD'S.  (Leviticus 3:16)
 
THE PRIESTS WHO RECEIVED THE OFFERINGS could take a small amount of the meat of the offerings for themselves, to feed their families. But they were to take it after the fat had burned off. Eli’s sons argued with the people who came to sacrifice until the people despised the offering of the Lord. Eli’s sons were insisting on having raw meat before the fat was burned off. Below is a recorded conversation of the contention that went on. The people were wondering: “Why does God let this go on?”
 
Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would answer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force. Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD: for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.  (1Samuel 2:15-17)
 
●ELI IS REPRIMANDED. Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people?  (1Samuel 2:29) This is plain.
Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.  (1Samuel 2:30)

GOD DIDN'T CHANGE HIS MIND ABOUT HIS INSTRUCTIONS to the priests, which included Eli’s father-priest. Eli had messed up so bad that he had dishonored his earthly father and disobeyed the Lord. God was going to have to do something about it.

THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH TO CAUSE ELI TO SRAIGHTEN UP and take his sons in hand, but the warning fell on Eli’s deaf ears.  He gave his wicked sons a little pep talk and reasoned with them. We do not negotiate with God──we obey Him! Eli’s sons were under him in employment. Parents cannot force grown children to obey the Lord. We can only pray for them and urge them to follow the Lord.

BUT, IF CHILDREN ARE UNDER OUR ROOF, they are under our authority and under our rules; especially in the teen years. That can be a tough time. Many hours of example, prayer, pleading, and firm enforcement of the rules go into those years. Eli did not do his best. We are to do our best. Parents do their children NO favor by trying to be buddies with them. You are not a buddy; you are an authority figure. Wear it. “Under my roof – under my rules.”  James Dobson called it: “Tough Love.” His book by that name is still available for as little as $1.00 through several outlets online.

I HAD TO PRACTICE THIS. I had to open the kitchen door and offer one of my sons a choice between my-roof-and-rules or the street outside. I meant it and after staring into the dark and the street for a minute or two, he decided my roof and rules were a better choice. It was never brought up again. Tough love is not easy.  Before I was married, I had talked with people on the streets, in jails and rescue missions and I saw what rebellion would do to young people. I knew that a loving but firm hand is a must.

WHEN I WAS 14, MY DAD BROUGHT A YOUNG MAN HOME WITH HIM from the sawmill. He worked on Saturday at putting in new fence posts for the pasture field. Sunday morning, he went to church with me in the big farm truck. After church, I couldn’t find him. He had hitchhiked to an old friend’s house who was in the army. His friend came home unexpectedly and found the young man I took to church, in bed with his wife. The soldier split his head with a double-bladed axe. I don’t know if this young man had ever experienced tough love from a loving father. All I knew was that he was dead, and it happened fast. Breakfast at our table and the funeral home that night.

BROTHER ROLOFF HAD A HEART FOR TRASHED TEENAGERS and broken homes and named his radio broadcast: Family Altar. Many of the rebellious kids in his homes were children of pastors. They knew Bible verses and Amazing Grace, but they were rebels. Pastor Kent Kelly and I ate breakfast with him in his home kitchen in Texas. He couldn’t eat for the phone ringing. He paced back and forth in the kitchen as he took a desperate call from Germany. Read the Bible and pray with your children. Live what you preach. Listen to them without chewing them out. Compliment them for what they do right. Hold them accountable for doing wrong. That’s part of your job.

Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.  (1Samuel 2:22)
And he said unto them, Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the LORD'S people to transgress. If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him? Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the LORD would slay them.  (1Samuel 2:22-25)

“….the Lord would slay them.”  God knows hearts. He knows when self-will is so set against God that a man is not going to change.  No need to talk to these young men any more. Their days are numbered. Now we have the scenario with the child Samuel.
 
And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.  And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the LORD.  (1Samuel 3:19-20)

  ●This article is edited and reprinted from September 15, 2015 and November 17, 2017
 
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THE END OF THE STORY IS THAT GOD SENT ELI'S SONS INTO BATTLE and they were killed. When Eli received the news that his sons were dead and that the Ark of God had been taken in battle, Eli went into shock, fell off his seat and broke his neck.

GOD IS SERIOUS ABOUT PEOPLE HONORING HIM and serious about people who despise Him and His word.  Eli didn’t lose his salvation. But he lost his life. There is a sin unto death in the Old Testament and a sin unto death in the New Testament. The sin unto death can happen to a Christian. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.  (1John 5:16-17)
 
ALL SIN IS NOT THE SAME. THERE IS A SIN UNTO DEATH. Most sins are not unto death. Therefore, all sins are not the same in the sight of the Lord.  For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.  For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.  (1Corinthians 11:30-32)
 
WE MUST HONOR THE LORD IN EVERYTHING WE DO. That will keep us from running into the trouble Eli got himself into. Ω
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Read Through the Bible in a Year
 NOVEMBER 13, 2017 - TUESDAY
  A.M   Ezekiel 4-6    P.M Hebrews 10:1-23
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

Good Verse to Memorize: 
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  (Proverbs 3:5-6)
 
Song for Today: 
I Have Decided to Follow Jesus (2:39) (Gaither)  
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehuBXUD5h8U
  You may have to adjust the volume and delete Ad.

I intended to let Brother Roloff sing this morning, but this one got to me. Let’s follow Jesus.
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going about doing good...

11/11/2018

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    Going About Doing Good

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.  (Acts 10:38)

WE REMEMBER THAT JOHN BUNYAN wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress” while he was locked up in the Bedford jail for twelve years because he was preaching without a license from the government. His thriving church dwindled and was boarded up. At length, the government relented, and he returned to preach in his church, although he spent much of his time in London.
 
IT WAS A DAY AND PLACE OF EXTREME POVERTY. By age 59 Bunyan was one of England's most famous writers. He carried out his pastoring duties and was nicknamed "Bishop Bunyan." In August 1688, he rode through heavy rain to reconcile a father and son, became ill, and died.
 
I DON' KNOW WHO DREW THE PICTURE of the pitiful, starving kitten leaning on a man’s shoe, but the caption supposedly was written by John Bunyan.  What was there about this man, Jesus, who has commanded the allegiance of so many millions of people over a period of two thousand years? Before His day of crucifixion, he preached like no other man before Him. But Peter shows us a snapshot of Jesus that drew people to hear Him and to give their lives for Him.
 
IN OUR TEXT FOR TODAY, PETER MENTIONS IN ONE LINE: “who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.” Here is one of those phrases (two phrases) that is powerful and commanding.  One might question: “What is so unusual about a man going about doing good?” It is unusual in that few men were going about doing good. It is still true today that not many men go around “doing good.” Men go around doing what they must do to get a dollar.
 
THE SECRET IN GOING ABOUT DOING GOOD is to do what God has enabled us to do for the people who need it the most. A lot of people were oppressed by the devil and Jesus had the power of God to deal with it. So, he did. This is a pattern of what we are to do as His disciples. Do what God has enabled you to do. Before Peter made the statement above, he had already said to a lame man:  Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.  (Acts 3:6)
 
THIS RECALLS THE PRACTICE OF A DEACON AT THE HIGHLAND PARK BAPTIST Church in Chattanooga, TN. The deacon owned a restaurant and when the restaurant was closed at the end of the day, he began his second job. He took the food that was left over and delivered it to a list of people in need. He was always by himself. He never told anyone about it. He was just observed doing it day after day.
 
HOW DO WE GO ABOUT DOING GOOD? Perhaps it would begin with a prayer at the beginning of the day, asking God to show us what we should do. We do not know who is going to cross our path, but God knows. I don’t own a restaurant, so I can’t do what the deacon did. Peter also said: As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  (1Peter 4:10)
 
A BLACK CROW CAN'T SING LIKE A NIGHTINGALE because God made him to caw-caw-caw! Don’t worry about what other people are doing that you cannot do. But, you have a gift of some kind that can be a blessing to someone in need. Paul told us another part of going about doing good. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.  (2Corinthians 8:12)

WE MIGHT DO WELL TO BEGIN WITH A KIND WORD. How are you doing with kind words these days?  When we start our day, if we are in tune with going about doing good, we will recognize an opportunity. This is Bible. The organ won’t play, and the church bell won’t ring but the one who watches the sparrow that falls also watches His children to see if they’re behaving like His children.
 
JOSEPH SCRIVEN WAS ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED and the day before the wedding, his bride-to-be capsized on the lake and drowned. Joseph never married. He was a handyman who circulated in his community fixing things for people. When he died, someone found a folded paper in a drawer  with words in his handwriting. It was a poem: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”  Charles Converse wrote the music and we sing it today as one of the most loved of gospel songs. Listen to Larry Ford sing it. Ω

Read Through the Bible in a Year
NOVEMBER 12, 2018 – MONDAY
 A.M. Ezekiel 1-3   P.M. Hebrews 9
(Bible Gateway will read this to you if you like. Look for the speaker icon.)

A Good Verse to Memorize:  
Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.  (Psalm 41:1)

Song for Today: 
What a Friend We Have in Jesus (3:37) (Larry Ford -Gaither Group)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coO5Sl8Vnlw               
       (Wait several seconds. You may have to delete an ad.)

 I posted this article about a year ago and the message still holds. Let us do good.
 
 
 
 
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    Dan Carr is a "retired" pastor, writer, teacher and continues to write at this website. This blog and other articles are e-mailed free to anyone who wants them. Go to: 
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    Dan and Barbara live 
    at Flat Rock, AL between Chattanooga, TN and Huntsville, AL. on Sand Mtn.
    We enjoy gardening, reading, church, family and friends.

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