Keep Yourselves from Idols

The best thing that could happen for a large number of American Evangelical Christians is for Donald Trump to be soundly defeated in tomorrow's election. If your faith and hope is so taken up in a mere mortal man, you have a weak and inadequate religion. Perhaps if your idol is driven defeated from the field, you will realize your only hope and confidence is in Jesus Christ alone. The OT prophets chastized Judea for relying on and hoping for Egypt to help and rescue them.

"Goodby to All That"

One of the top WW-1 memoirs is Robert Graves' "Goodby to all That" in which he details his experiances as a British Officer in the trenches of France. Graves' memories are compelling in and of themnselves and your WW-1 library is not complete without this work.

Of all the phrases and words Graves uses, the most memorable to me is the title itself; "Goodbye to All That". I supoose most of us at one time or another have reached a point in life when we said, or wanted to say, "Goodbye to all that".

Last week I said, "Goodby to all that." regarding my Facebook account. I haven't totally deactivated the account, but am taking a much needed sabbatical from it.

For some reason the Facebook platform has a way of amplifying all the good,the bad, and the ugly of social media. The bad and the ugly are even more amplified during this American Prsidential election year coupled with the COVID 19 pandemic.

Yes, I see the same kinds of stuff on Twitter, but my Twitter list is not primarely built around freinds, families, and aquaintences, and it has been easier to ignore or block obnoxious tweets and people.

Social media has created a platform for all sorts of half-baked conspiricay theories, mis-information, selective data picking, etc, so on, and so forth. It gets to be nauseating and when you see professing Christian people engaging in those things, it is depressing.

Goodby to all that...

...and maybe I'll have more time for blogging here.

The New World Order with COVID 19

I watched the news about the COVID 19 Pandemic. It was spreading from China to other parts of the world. It reached the Seattle, Washington area. It was only a matter of time before we would see it in our urban Michigan area. And so it came.

We knew the Michigan Governor was going to issue some kind of "stay at home" order, and on Friday, March 20, 2020, the order was issued. Sunday, March 22 we stayed home and watched the livestream service from our church.

That was the 1st Sunday. It is now Friday, June 26 and this coming Sunday will be the 17th Sunday. A few weeks ago we started to again meet in the church building, but with restrictions regarding masks and limited seating to encourage social distancing.

Online social media has become saturated with news, analysis, and opinion about the pandemic to the point where my eyes would glaze over and I just ignored most of it; blocking much of it, especially the "conspiracy theories". Michigan had some of the more stringent emergency orders in place, and that became a political hot point between the Governor and her more extreme political enemies.

Being a political independent removed me from the echo chambers some of my friends and acquaintances were caught up in. It is frustrating to watch it. COVID 19 became very politicalized. To wear or not wear a mask became politicalized. To often basic science was ignored or thrown under the bus to sustain a narrative with not much connection to reality. And on top of all of that, it is a major election year.

At our age, my wife and I are in a "vulnerable group" for COVID 19. When we are places where we will be in proximity to other people, we wear a mask. The mask does not stop oxygen or carbon dioxide flow, or even the virus itself. The mask stops the water droplets that are carrying the virus. Stop the water droplets and you stop the virus. That's why we wear a mask when it is appropriate to do so. It's how we can practice loving our neighbors.

The other issue is the abject failure of our culture and society, and even the church at large, to recognize God's hand in judgement through this pandemic. I'm not talking about specific people of whom I know nothing about who have died from COVID 19. But I am talking about judgement at large against a culture and society that is immersed in a selfish secular materialism bathed in the blood of millions of aborted unborn innocent babies.

How long do we think as a society and culture we can keep shaking our fist at Him and spitting in his face? The COVID 19 pandemic with its economic consequence is the small cloud of what is to come. It is the proverbial warning "shot across the bow". Whatsoever you sow, you shall reap. It is an inevitable consequence which at some point will become unavoidable.

May God Almighty yet have mercy upon us.

She was Much to Young

When we first started attending our current church, Meghan was just entering her teenage years. In the context of church life we came acquainted with her parents and two siblings. Meghan was the youngest of the three. She was at that time of life where it remained to be seen what she would become as an adult. There was a time in those teen years when in dealing with severe headaches, it was discovered that Meghan had an unoperable tumor in the brain area. At the time it was dealt with by other means, and seemed to be under control.

The years passed. Meghan graduated from high school, and a few years later married her high school sweetheart Jordan. Children came; their own children, several adopted children, and a foster child; six in all. Meghan and Jordan were active in our church. She loved her husband and children, and more importantly she loved her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and she reflected that love of God to those around her.

Last year the tumor reappeared. To make a long story short, this past week Meghan passed away at the young age of 30. It was a bit of a shock. It seemed to happen so suddenly. She's gone; leaving behind her husband and children and extended family and an innumerable number of friends whose life she touched and impacted for good and for the glory of God.

We know Meghan is with her Lord and Savior. God has His sovereign purpose in all He does and we rest in that assurance. By the grace and mercy of God we will see Meghan again.

The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart;
And devout men are taken away, while no one understands.
For the righteous man is taken away from evil,
2 He enters into peace;
They rest in their beds,
Each one who walked in his upright way.
(Isaiah 57:1-2)

The Great Equalizer

Yes, I posted this before. Yes, it needs to be repeated...

The prophets talk about how the mighty kings of the earth are brought down low in death. They dwell in the realm of the dead with those who in life they oppressed and lorded it over. Their pomp and circumstance and their great deeds, mean nothing in the grave. In those prophetic writings, the common unknown dead of the earth mock and scorn those who were mighty and powerful in life, but have now been laid low by the great equalizer of death and the grave. The grave worms don’t care if you were mighty among the nations or not; nor do they care if in the eyes of the world you were in the top one percent of the one percent.

This present world is not the end. There will be an accounting for all the wrong and injustice that has been done on this earth. By sin came death. It is in Christ we have the hope of life and the resurrection. He holds the keys of death and hell.