Saturday, July 18, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Jul-07-Why All The Castratos In The Choir Visibule?
Some opening thoughts ----
Why All The Castrato's In The Choir Visibule?
Where have all the men gone - especially in Church Planting in the UK
I became a Christian in August 1979. For now nearly thirty years, I have pitched my personal tent amongst the people of God in many a varied situation. My Jobs and calling have led me to be involved with quite a few churches on two continents and for the last eight years in particular, I have been an active and avid student of church growth and church planting methodology here in the West.
However, although these opening thoughts throw a few stones at current and most successful church planting methodology, I have attempted to direct my main thrust around the need for churches who are driven by released preaching and released preachers. I really desire to examine what a released Preaching Driven Church might look like. Indeed, a book I am working on at he moment is an examination if two words, those being Control and Release. I believe that our present and seemingly successful models of church planting have become most monstrous machines of our own making, which in turn have a momentum and life within themselves, which control at every level the direction and destiny of local churches. I do not want to throw any babies out with the bathwater but I do want to make sure that we, the people God, are most thoroughly in control of any church growth model which we might utilize in the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the moment I do believe that we are the dying servants of attractively alluring ‘Stepford Wives,’ all out of control and killing us, not so softly with their satellite love.
I must say right now, that though I have read widely, I undoubtedly have not read widely enough. There is nothing new under the sun that’s for sure and some of which I write about will no doubt have been written somewhere else long before I put fingers to type pad and also, some of the ideas I an trying to express, may well have been expressed and put into practice elsewhere. I have endeavored to give credit where I remember where credit is due, however, where I have failed to do so, then please forgive me. There are lots of methodologies, styles, intents, purposes and practices out there and I have probably stolen from most of them! I have in my life endeavored to be a good Asian man in that I have tried to take that which already works, reproduce and utilize it for myself and my own profit. I am no expert in the matters of church growth either, no, all I am really is a little boy amongst the crowd watching the parade of the local kings and willing to cry out that “They are not wearing any clothes! They are altogether as naked as the day that they were born!”
You know, just using the terms ‘methodology’ and ‘preaching practices’ already has me bored. It sounds like some text book pointers for the elite, or certain studious folks without a real job or a real life. The truth is, that in my experience, there are not many people in those old pews or new padded movable seats, who frankly give a fig about methodology of any kind. The ‘Super Wal -Marting’ of Christianity has done its work in developing such a deep culture of Christian consumerism that it has given birth to plastic spiritual products for religiously plastic people. To quote a current hip word in North America, which, in my opinion, was far better utilized by C.S. Lewis, our Western Christianity and our people are just not [i]‘SOLID’. However, though most Christians do not care about ‘method,’ in church planting ‘method’ never the less, is everything!
These opening paragraphs may already lead some of you to conclude that I am a cynic of present church structure and practices, being both bitter and twisted out of shape about it all and frankly, you would not be totally incorrect. Don’t write me about it, just live with it. We’ve got problems in the church at the beginning of this 21st Century and I am prepared to pick at them and pull them apart. We have to, especially in England or in just a couple of generations, the Church in our country, will be no more.
I believe that we in the West, are the church of the blind Laodicean age and our poor ‘peepers ‘are in great need of a good old poking. The solving of our problems may indeed lie in the salving of our eyes but the truism that ‘there is none so blind as them that will not see’ is a formidable obstacle to overcome, when numbers and materials alone become the measuring stick for seeming success in church growth. Never the less, we must try and rub some scriptural exfoliate on the delicate surface of our eyes , to see if the cataracts of consumerism will be shredded away and we shall be left with yet another hill of cut [ii]skins to stand upon and so be able to rightly peer over the walls of these not so little, alluring and attractive church kingdoms. We need to take a very good look at what is really going on in present church growth.
Unfortunately I do believe that if you were to stand on all the lying hype from the lips of many Christian leaders and then look over the wall of these man-made, man centered and man maintained little kingdoms, then I think that when you have a thorough and honest look at where we are as Christian people (poor, blind and naked) and where we shall no doubt end up this side of heaven as the church militant (destroyed), you too will begin to feel a little worried, and maybe little bitter concerning what we have been robbed of and also maybe not a little twisted out of shape concerning our never realized and unfulfilled dreams. In great part, our leaders are responsible for this increasing defrormity.
If I am right, in that we the church have indeed churned out more plastic consumables than Woolworths ever did, or even Wal Mart, and Big Lots combined! And all in attempt to make God accessible (I am so sorry Father), then we need to ask ourselves some questions regarding the absence of men in the church and the pitiful presence of men with no bits. So :
“How on earth did we get here and how did we become so rich in materials and such paupers in true spirituality?
How did we produce so many ‘kitten like people’ whose matted little eyes have never fully opened?
How did the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, give birth to such worrying little whelps, such crappy little cubs?
How did we produce so many castratos in the well dressed choir?
How did we produce so many needy people who are willing to settle for less, and willing to be satisfied with mere morsels from mere mortals?
Just how did we produce so many Chamberlains shaking that piece of paper, that pitiful pact with the devil pronouncing ‘peace in our time’ whilst Satan himself maliciously masses his forces on the borders of our undefended kingdom and even now rolls heavily on towards all the capitals of our cities set on hills, all dressed with nice neat houses of grey?
The tanks are on the road friends and our houses begin to burn all around us, and it is not Babylon that has fallen, fallen and come crashing down but rather, the city of God that is almost laid waste before the enemies feet. What happened here?” Meanwhile, the major concern of our major denomination is 'what gender can I have sex with? Or, how to happily legitimise perversion.'
This is the beginning of a rant. However, though I will continue do a little ranting and raving, just a little, much more importantly, I will present you with a model for releasing the people of God into their destiny of becoming the powerful disciples of Jesus Christ, instead of the mass production of pew fodder that consumes junk food, whilst sitting on rear ends, and for th privelage of being continually breast fed, still cough up their ten percent on an regular basis to support the dynasties of the so called God blessed lifestyles of the ‘Fortune 500’ fortunate few, Pastor-Preneurs.
To comfort some of you folks, I want to tell you that I am a preacher and believe thoroughly in the primacy of preaching and in the local church in particular. I truly believe that until we get back to a church that is truly Preaching Driven, we shall never turn this ship around and we shall never affect the world for the cause of Christ. I Sincerely desire the thoughts of this opening shot to be something which ignites many fires that will burn the bondage of wrong thinking so that the people of God may be released into their callings and destinies. I might well be swinging an ax at just a few of our most precious trees but I also want to plant a few seeds in giving you some possible answers for a way forward for the church alive on planet earth before just before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are long over due a mixed outpouring of testosterone and repentance.
May I finish by quoting [iii]James Montgomery who was a Scot who lived just down the road from me in England, where I was born and brought up, Rotherham, to be precise. Now whilst acknowledging that Rotherham is a good place to die, James Montgomery did in fact pass into the next life in 1854, just over the Derbyshire border in the city of Sheffield and is buried in a local cemetery there. Montgomery was a writer and a radical and a poet, penning over four hundred hymns before his death. This old hymn of his, “Forever with the Lord” shows him to be a pilgrim and a sojourner in a strange land who was,
Loving the Word,
Living the Word and
Looking to Heaven.
(and by the way - this is the best way to make God accessible)
I am convinced that if we can walk the way expressed by James Montgomery, then both we and the world in which we live, would become better and sweeter places to be. Amen.
" For ever with the Lord!"
Amen; so let it be;
life from the dead is in that word,
'tis immortality.
Here in the body pent,
absent from him I roam,
yet nightly pitch my moving tent
a day's march nearer home.
My Father's house on high,
home of the soul, how near!
At times to faith's foreseeing eye
thy golden gates appear!
Ah! then my spirit faints,
to reach the land I love,
the bright inheritance of saints,
Jerusalem above.
"For ever with the Lord!"
Father, if 'tis thy will,
the promise of that faithful word
even here to me fulfill.
Be thou at my right hand,
then can I never fail;
uphold thou me, and I shall stand,
fight, and I must prevail.
So when my latest breath
shall rend the veil in twain,
by death I shall escape from death,
and life eternal gain.
Knowing as I am known,
how shall I love that word,
and oft repeat before the throne,
"For ever with the Lord!"
Words: James Montgomery, 1835
Music: Moving Tent, Nearer Home, Llanllyfni
Meter: SMD
[i] C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Page 68
[ii] Josh 5:3 So Joshua made flint knives for himself, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins .NKJV
[iii] http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/m/o/n/montgomery_j.htm
Why All The Castrato's In The Choir Visibule?
Where have all the men gone - especially in Church Planting in the UK
I became a Christian in August 1979. For now nearly thirty years, I have pitched my personal tent amongst the people of God in many a varied situation. My Jobs and calling have led me to be involved with quite a few churches on two continents and for the last eight years in particular, I have been an active and avid student of church growth and church planting methodology here in the West.
However, although these opening thoughts throw a few stones at current and most successful church planting methodology, I have attempted to direct my main thrust around the need for churches who are driven by released preaching and released preachers. I really desire to examine what a released Preaching Driven Church might look like. Indeed, a book I am working on at he moment is an examination if two words, those being Control and Release. I believe that our present and seemingly successful models of church planting have become most monstrous machines of our own making, which in turn have a momentum and life within themselves, which control at every level the direction and destiny of local churches. I do not want to throw any babies out with the bathwater but I do want to make sure that we, the people God, are most thoroughly in control of any church growth model which we might utilize in the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the moment I do believe that we are the dying servants of attractively alluring ‘Stepford Wives,’ all out of control and killing us, not so softly with their satellite love.
I must say right now, that though I have read widely, I undoubtedly have not read widely enough. There is nothing new under the sun that’s for sure and some of which I write about will no doubt have been written somewhere else long before I put fingers to type pad and also, some of the ideas I an trying to express, may well have been expressed and put into practice elsewhere. I have endeavored to give credit where I remember where credit is due, however, where I have failed to do so, then please forgive me. There are lots of methodologies, styles, intents, purposes and practices out there and I have probably stolen from most of them! I have in my life endeavored to be a good Asian man in that I have tried to take that which already works, reproduce and utilize it for myself and my own profit. I am no expert in the matters of church growth either, no, all I am really is a little boy amongst the crowd watching the parade of the local kings and willing to cry out that “They are not wearing any clothes! They are altogether as naked as the day that they were born!”
You know, just using the terms ‘methodology’ and ‘preaching practices’ already has me bored. It sounds like some text book pointers for the elite, or certain studious folks without a real job or a real life. The truth is, that in my experience, there are not many people in those old pews or new padded movable seats, who frankly give a fig about methodology of any kind. The ‘Super Wal -Marting’ of Christianity has done its work in developing such a deep culture of Christian consumerism that it has given birth to plastic spiritual products for religiously plastic people. To quote a current hip word in North America, which, in my opinion, was far better utilized by C.S. Lewis, our Western Christianity and our people are just not [i]‘SOLID’. However, though most Christians do not care about ‘method,’ in church planting ‘method’ never the less, is everything!
These opening paragraphs may already lead some of you to conclude that I am a cynic of present church structure and practices, being both bitter and twisted out of shape about it all and frankly, you would not be totally incorrect. Don’t write me about it, just live with it. We’ve got problems in the church at the beginning of this 21st Century and I am prepared to pick at them and pull them apart. We have to, especially in England or in just a couple of generations, the Church in our country, will be no more.
I believe that we in the West, are the church of the blind Laodicean age and our poor ‘peepers ‘are in great need of a good old poking. The solving of our problems may indeed lie in the salving of our eyes but the truism that ‘there is none so blind as them that will not see’ is a formidable obstacle to overcome, when numbers and materials alone become the measuring stick for seeming success in church growth. Never the less, we must try and rub some scriptural exfoliate on the delicate surface of our eyes , to see if the cataracts of consumerism will be shredded away and we shall be left with yet another hill of cut [ii]skins to stand upon and so be able to rightly peer over the walls of these not so little, alluring and attractive church kingdoms. We need to take a very good look at what is really going on in present church growth.
Unfortunately I do believe that if you were to stand on all the lying hype from the lips of many Christian leaders and then look over the wall of these man-made, man centered and man maintained little kingdoms, then I think that when you have a thorough and honest look at where we are as Christian people (poor, blind and naked) and where we shall no doubt end up this side of heaven as the church militant (destroyed), you too will begin to feel a little worried, and maybe little bitter concerning what we have been robbed of and also maybe not a little twisted out of shape concerning our never realized and unfulfilled dreams. In great part, our leaders are responsible for this increasing defrormity.
If I am right, in that we the church have indeed churned out more plastic consumables than Woolworths ever did, or even Wal Mart, and Big Lots combined! And all in attempt to make God accessible (I am so sorry Father), then we need to ask ourselves some questions regarding the absence of men in the church and the pitiful presence of men with no bits. So :
“How on earth did we get here and how did we become so rich in materials and such paupers in true spirituality?
How did we produce so many ‘kitten like people’ whose matted little eyes have never fully opened?
How did the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, give birth to such worrying little whelps, such crappy little cubs?
How did we produce so many castratos in the well dressed choir?
How did we produce so many needy people who are willing to settle for less, and willing to be satisfied with mere morsels from mere mortals?
Just how did we produce so many Chamberlains shaking that piece of paper, that pitiful pact with the devil pronouncing ‘peace in our time’ whilst Satan himself maliciously masses his forces on the borders of our undefended kingdom and even now rolls heavily on towards all the capitals of our cities set on hills, all dressed with nice neat houses of grey?
The tanks are on the road friends and our houses begin to burn all around us, and it is not Babylon that has fallen, fallen and come crashing down but rather, the city of God that is almost laid waste before the enemies feet. What happened here?” Meanwhile, the major concern of our major denomination is 'what gender can I have sex with? Or, how to happily legitimise perversion.'
This is the beginning of a rant. However, though I will continue do a little ranting and raving, just a little, much more importantly, I will present you with a model for releasing the people of God into their destiny of becoming the powerful disciples of Jesus Christ, instead of the mass production of pew fodder that consumes junk food, whilst sitting on rear ends, and for th privelage of being continually breast fed, still cough up their ten percent on an regular basis to support the dynasties of the so called God blessed lifestyles of the ‘Fortune 500’ fortunate few, Pastor-Preneurs.
To comfort some of you folks, I want to tell you that I am a preacher and believe thoroughly in the primacy of preaching and in the local church in particular. I truly believe that until we get back to a church that is truly Preaching Driven, we shall never turn this ship around and we shall never affect the world for the cause of Christ. I Sincerely desire the thoughts of this opening shot to be something which ignites many fires that will burn the bondage of wrong thinking so that the people of God may be released into their callings and destinies. I might well be swinging an ax at just a few of our most precious trees but I also want to plant a few seeds in giving you some possible answers for a way forward for the church alive on planet earth before just before the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are long over due a mixed outpouring of testosterone and repentance.
May I finish by quoting [iii]James Montgomery who was a Scot who lived just down the road from me in England, where I was born and brought up, Rotherham, to be precise. Now whilst acknowledging that Rotherham is a good place to die, James Montgomery did in fact pass into the next life in 1854, just over the Derbyshire border in the city of Sheffield and is buried in a local cemetery there. Montgomery was a writer and a radical and a poet, penning over four hundred hymns before his death. This old hymn of his, “Forever with the Lord” shows him to be a pilgrim and a sojourner in a strange land who was,
Loving the Word,
Living the Word and
Looking to Heaven.
(and by the way - this is the best way to make God accessible)
I am convinced that if we can walk the way expressed by James Montgomery, then both we and the world in which we live, would become better and sweeter places to be. Amen.
" For ever with the Lord!"
Amen; so let it be;
life from the dead is in that word,
'tis immortality.
Here in the body pent,
absent from him I roam,
yet nightly pitch my moving tent
a day's march nearer home.
My Father's house on high,
home of the soul, how near!
At times to faith's foreseeing eye
thy golden gates appear!
Ah! then my spirit faints,
to reach the land I love,
the bright inheritance of saints,
Jerusalem above.
"For ever with the Lord!"
Father, if 'tis thy will,
the promise of that faithful word
even here to me fulfill.
Be thou at my right hand,
then can I never fail;
uphold thou me, and I shall stand,
fight, and I must prevail.
So when my latest breath
shall rend the veil in twain,
by death I shall escape from death,
and life eternal gain.
Knowing as I am known,
how shall I love that word,
and oft repeat before the throne,
"For ever with the Lord!"
Words: James Montgomery, 1835
Music: Moving Tent, Nearer Home, Llanllyfni
Meter: SMD
[i] C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Page 68
[ii] Josh 5:3 So Joshua made flint knives for himself, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins .NKJV
[iii] http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/m/o/n/montgomery_j.htm
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Jul-02-Defining & Refining
The next Thirty years will define the church
The next Twenty years will refine the church
There will be civil war – not over blues and greys but over truth and gays ?
The real church will be for the rising and falling of many
Swords will pierce the hearts of good shepherds
Our children, sour milk fed, misinformed and deceptively misled
Whose faith is nothing but a castle on the sand
Will be washed away by the incoming tide
Christendom will be destitute
Christendom will become an open whore
Spreading her legs ever wider
There will be civil unrest
Clashes on the streets
Islam shall raise itself up and the country shall cower before it
Islam and Secular Humanism, clothed in gay attire and spouting BBC PC speak
Shall for only small time
Fight like Hyenas over the corpse of this once Christian country
The remnant will watch in envy at being sidelined from such a fight
The remnant shall seek a new exodus from these lands
Another pilgrimage to the land of promise
But to where? The door is being bolted
Only money shall find a way
All is lost
There are no blacksmiths in the land and
There is no generation with a sword in its mouth or with fire in its belly
Like lolling Laodicean imbeciles, the church, like a blind fool
Is sat in the corner, happy to wear her dunces cap
She refuses to repent and is happy to be blind
Even so, all her trinkets and toys shall be taken from her
They shall be taken in an instant
Oh church of Jesus Christ
The wrath of God is ready to be revealed against all unrighteousness
But You will not turn
You will not learn!
So, you will die along with them
Do not think you shall escape
Prepare yourselves to suffer
Many, prepare yourselves to die
The white of Albion is no more
All her gates have fallen
All is lost
The next Twenty years will refine the church
There will be civil war – not over blues and greys but over truth and gays ?
The real church will be for the rising and falling of many
Swords will pierce the hearts of good shepherds
Our children, sour milk fed, misinformed and deceptively misled
Whose faith is nothing but a castle on the sand
Will be washed away by the incoming tide
Christendom will be destitute
Christendom will become an open whore
Spreading her legs ever wider
There will be civil unrest
Clashes on the streets
Islam shall raise itself up and the country shall cower before it
Islam and Secular Humanism, clothed in gay attire and spouting BBC PC speak
Shall for only small time
Fight like Hyenas over the corpse of this once Christian country
The remnant will watch in envy at being sidelined from such a fight
The remnant shall seek a new exodus from these lands
Another pilgrimage to the land of promise
But to where? The door is being bolted
Only money shall find a way
All is lost
There are no blacksmiths in the land and
There is no generation with a sword in its mouth or with fire in its belly
Like lolling Laodicean imbeciles, the church, like a blind fool
Is sat in the corner, happy to wear her dunces cap
She refuses to repent and is happy to be blind
Even so, all her trinkets and toys shall be taken from her
They shall be taken in an instant
Oh church of Jesus Christ
The wrath of God is ready to be revealed against all unrighteousness
But You will not turn
You will not learn!
So, you will die along with them
Do not think you shall escape
Prepare yourselves to suffer
Many, prepare yourselves to die
The white of Albion is no more
All her gates have fallen
All is lost
Monday, April 13, 2009
Apr-12-Of Preaching & Pulpit Monkeys
Dream Word – FOOD
1 Corinthians 1:21-24
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. KJV
Of Preaching & Pulpit Monkeys
I am what was once referred to a ‘Literate.’ That is, I am an ordained person not bearing a University degree. I would like a degree, a couple maybe but ah no matter, I must confess, I do love being a “literate”. T’is enough.
I regard myself as someone rooted in literacy, in all kinds of words and in The Word in particular and I am daft enough to believe, that even in this Post modern age, even in what some have referred to as a visualized Post Evangelical age, that the proclamation of the Word of God still stands tallest as the primary means of communicating the gospel. I believe in the verbal proclamation of the gospel, one voice to another’s ears; one soul speaking through the connected eyes of another, from his heart to their heart. I believe this is God’s chosen way of communicating the Gospel and though it might be foolishness, it works. The only reason it has not seemingly been working and the main reason we have replaced it most thoroughly with anaemic video clips, cosseted in the pale blanket of wet worship, is that we have hired ourselves a multitude of pulpit monkeys, who, void of any anointing, never the less bear a reputable degree, manage well and communicate inoffensively better. For sure, such monkeys are cute to have around at first, performing great tricks even, but in the end, who wants to listen to a pulpit monkey chattering on about nothing. The soul turns sour and dies under the pathetic ministry of such chattering monkeys. Yes, I wish with all my heart that we had men in our pulpits instead of monkeys, for what we have is just not enough.
In his book, ‘Lectures to My Students’, when talking about ‘God’s Acres,’ those open air arenas of proclamation and the great men of the past who made them their pulpits, Spurgeon makes mention of the Scots divine, Holy George Wishart. It is Wishart’s disciple, John Knox, who tells us that being denied access to most churches, that Wishart preached the length and breadth of Scotland in the open air. Indeed, on one occasion he went to the plague city of Dundee, choosing his platform of proclamation to be the entrance of the east gate, where taking Psalm 107:20 as his text, he preached to the infected outside the city gate and the black death free within. Spurgeon says “Seldom has a preacher had such an audience and seldom an audience had such a preacher......Old time stood at the preachers side with a scythe, saying with a hoarse voice, ‘work while it is today for at night I will mow thee down.’ There, too, stood grim death hard by the pulpit, with his sharp arrows saying, ‘Do thou shoot God’s arrows and I will shoot mine.’ This is indeed,” says Spurgeon, “a notable instance of preaching out of doors.” You’d better believe it!
Wishart escaped an assassination attempt at Dundee, but his old enemy Cardinal Beaton had him handed over to him by the Earl of Bothwell. Wishart was tried as an heretic, convicted and burned at the stake outside the walls of Edinburgh castle. On the morning of his execution the Captain of the castle invited Wishart to breakfast and gave him both food and gunpowder bags to put under his clothing. At the burning, his executioner knelt and begged for Wishart’s forgiveness, which he most readily gave. The fire did indeed eventually explode the gunpowder bags but they didn’t kill him straight away. From his window, Cardinal Beaton watched Wishart’s dying agonies.
Yes, you can buy yourself a pulpit monkey anytime you like. Ah, but men who carry the gunpowder of the Holy Spirit, underneath their anointed and holy garments, men that pack power in their words, and shoot arrows from their mouth, men who stand with time and death by their sides, men who truly believe and practice the foolishness of preaching, my God, men like that are worth their weight in gold! However, they cannot be bought. Think about that.
Some of you tonight are called to set your pulpits in the open air once more. Make sure your a literate in the Word, make sure your packed with the gunpowder of the Holy Spirit.
Some of you tonight need to stop monkeying around and repent. Yes, some of you, for goodness sake, need to start being men in your pulpits and not a monkeys.
Some of you Church goers tonight need to check your larders and I tell you, if all you have accumulated over the years are bunches of bright yellow bananas, then some of you need to simply stop going to the local zoo, because I tell you, that’s what your local church has turned into.
1 Corinthians 1:21-24
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. KJV
Of Preaching & Pulpit Monkeys
I am what was once referred to a ‘Literate.’ That is, I am an ordained person not bearing a University degree. I would like a degree, a couple maybe but ah no matter, I must confess, I do love being a “literate”. T’is enough.
I regard myself as someone rooted in literacy, in all kinds of words and in The Word in particular and I am daft enough to believe, that even in this Post modern age, even in what some have referred to as a visualized Post Evangelical age, that the proclamation of the Word of God still stands tallest as the primary means of communicating the gospel. I believe in the verbal proclamation of the gospel, one voice to another’s ears; one soul speaking through the connected eyes of another, from his heart to their heart. I believe this is God’s chosen way of communicating the Gospel and though it might be foolishness, it works. The only reason it has not seemingly been working and the main reason we have replaced it most thoroughly with anaemic video clips, cosseted in the pale blanket of wet worship, is that we have hired ourselves a multitude of pulpit monkeys, who, void of any anointing, never the less bear a reputable degree, manage well and communicate inoffensively better. For sure, such monkeys are cute to have around at first, performing great tricks even, but in the end, who wants to listen to a pulpit monkey chattering on about nothing. The soul turns sour and dies under the pathetic ministry of such chattering monkeys. Yes, I wish with all my heart that we had men in our pulpits instead of monkeys, for what we have is just not enough.
In his book, ‘Lectures to My Students’, when talking about ‘God’s Acres,’ those open air arenas of proclamation and the great men of the past who made them their pulpits, Spurgeon makes mention of the Scots divine, Holy George Wishart. It is Wishart’s disciple, John Knox, who tells us that being denied access to most churches, that Wishart preached the length and breadth of Scotland in the open air. Indeed, on one occasion he went to the plague city of Dundee, choosing his platform of proclamation to be the entrance of the east gate, where taking Psalm 107:20 as his text, he preached to the infected outside the city gate and the black death free within. Spurgeon says “Seldom has a preacher had such an audience and seldom an audience had such a preacher......Old time stood at the preachers side with a scythe, saying with a hoarse voice, ‘work while it is today for at night I will mow thee down.’ There, too, stood grim death hard by the pulpit, with his sharp arrows saying, ‘Do thou shoot God’s arrows and I will shoot mine.’ This is indeed,” says Spurgeon, “a notable instance of preaching out of doors.” You’d better believe it!
Wishart escaped an assassination attempt at Dundee, but his old enemy Cardinal Beaton had him handed over to him by the Earl of Bothwell. Wishart was tried as an heretic, convicted and burned at the stake outside the walls of Edinburgh castle. On the morning of his execution the Captain of the castle invited Wishart to breakfast and gave him both food and gunpowder bags to put under his clothing. At the burning, his executioner knelt and begged for Wishart’s forgiveness, which he most readily gave. The fire did indeed eventually explode the gunpowder bags but they didn’t kill him straight away. From his window, Cardinal Beaton watched Wishart’s dying agonies.
Yes, you can buy yourself a pulpit monkey anytime you like. Ah, but men who carry the gunpowder of the Holy Spirit, underneath their anointed and holy garments, men that pack power in their words, and shoot arrows from their mouth, men who stand with time and death by their sides, men who truly believe and practice the foolishness of preaching, my God, men like that are worth their weight in gold! However, they cannot be bought. Think about that.
Some of you tonight are called to set your pulpits in the open air once more. Make sure your a literate in the Word, make sure your packed with the gunpowder of the Holy Spirit.
Some of you tonight need to stop monkeying around and repent. Yes, some of you, for goodness sake, need to start being men in your pulpits and not a monkeys.
Some of you Church goers tonight need to check your larders and I tell you, if all you have accumulated over the years are bunches of bright yellow bananas, then some of you need to simply stop going to the local zoo, because I tell you, that’s what your local church has turned into.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Apr-10-The Blair Which?
Well it's good Friday. Nothing new there then for most people in Britain thank God it's Friday every week of the year. It's nearly Easter annd Hussein Obama is back from Turkey declaring that America is not a Christian nation. Yes it's Easter abd Tony Blair reveals he actually read the Koran almost evey day. It's Easter and the Archbishop who suggested we have Sharia Law in England will be celebrating bunny rabbits. After all, I'm not sure if he beleives in the resurection.
Happy Easter everyone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7992738.stm
Tony Blair has spoken to the BBC about his first spiritual experience, which occurred when he was a child.
The ex-prime minister said that praying for his atheist father when he became seriously ill had "a tremendous impact" on him.
Elsewhere in the interview with Joan Bakewell, Mr Blair defended the decision to invade Iraq, and insisted that faith schools are not divisive.
He also said that he reads the Koran nearly every day.
Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving office
In the interview, to be broadcast in the "Belief" programme on BBC Radio 3, Mr Blair reveals that when he was 10 years old his father had a stroke.
Despite the seriousness of that illness, his mother wanted her son's life to carry on as normal, so he continued to go to school, where he ended up praying for his father with the headmaster.
"I said to him 'Before we pray, I should tell you that my father, he doesn't believe in God.
"And I always remember the headmaster saying to me 'Well, that doesn't matter because God believes in him'".
He described the experience as having a "tremendous impact" on him.
Terrorist responsibility
Mr Blair also spoke about the role of faith schools in the state sector.
During his time as prime minister, the academy schools programme was launched.
He believes that expanding faith school provision helped to foster inter-faith relations, adding that a question of equality was involved.
I certainly don't believe that there is a Christian conviction that is superior one way or another on what the right thing to do is
Tony Blair
"You can't say to Christians and to Jews that you can have a faith school but Muslims can't".
"I think they can help give a sense of values, they can ground a child, they can instil a certain amount of discipline, in the right way, in a child's mind, provided that they approach religion in a non-sectarian way."
Blair's family on his mother's side were Irish Protestants, which he suggested gave him a personal connection with Ireland.
His grandfather was a grand master of an Orange Order lodge, a fact that he jokingly suggested may have helped in the Northern Ireland peace process.
"Every so often some guy who would say he was a cousin of mine would sort of wander up and say 'You don't know me, but we're related'".
On the issue of Iraq, Mr Blair insisted that Britain went to war for the right reasons, and that a previous policy of appeasement towards Saddam Hussein in the 1980s had led to the Iran-Iraq war and a million casualties.
Everyday reflections
He denied thinking that his Christian beliefs meant that he considered his decisions at the time of the invasion to be automatically the right thing to do.
"I certainly don't believe that there is a Christian conviction that is superior one way or another on what the right thing to do is."
He said the decision to invade Iraq was something he reflected on every day.
Mr Blair added that his religious beliefs help him - accepting that there is a God can be frightening but it is also a source of comfort.
He also spoke about the motivations of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rejected arguments that British foreign policy has radicalised Muslims.
"I think actually these acts of terrorism are utterly evil, yes. And when you think of the numbers of wholly innocent people that have died... I say the responsibility lies with the people doing the terrorism, 'cos there's no reason for them to do the terrorism."
Belief is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 10 Friday April at 2300 BST.
Happy Easter everyone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7992738.stm
Tony Blair has spoken to the BBC about his first spiritual experience, which occurred when he was a child.
The ex-prime minister said that praying for his atheist father when he became seriously ill had "a tremendous impact" on him.
Elsewhere in the interview with Joan Bakewell, Mr Blair defended the decision to invade Iraq, and insisted that faith schools are not divisive.
He also said that he reads the Koran nearly every day.
Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving office
In the interview, to be broadcast in the "Belief" programme on BBC Radio 3, Mr Blair reveals that when he was 10 years old his father had a stroke.
Despite the seriousness of that illness, his mother wanted her son's life to carry on as normal, so he continued to go to school, where he ended up praying for his father with the headmaster.
"I said to him 'Before we pray, I should tell you that my father, he doesn't believe in God.
"And I always remember the headmaster saying to me 'Well, that doesn't matter because God believes in him'".
He described the experience as having a "tremendous impact" on him.
Terrorist responsibility
Mr Blair also spoke about the role of faith schools in the state sector.
During his time as prime minister, the academy schools programme was launched.
He believes that expanding faith school provision helped to foster inter-faith relations, adding that a question of equality was involved.
I certainly don't believe that there is a Christian conviction that is superior one way or another on what the right thing to do is
Tony Blair
"You can't say to Christians and to Jews that you can have a faith school but Muslims can't".
"I think they can help give a sense of values, they can ground a child, they can instil a certain amount of discipline, in the right way, in a child's mind, provided that they approach religion in a non-sectarian way."
Blair's family on his mother's side were Irish Protestants, which he suggested gave him a personal connection with Ireland.
His grandfather was a grand master of an Orange Order lodge, a fact that he jokingly suggested may have helped in the Northern Ireland peace process.
"Every so often some guy who would say he was a cousin of mine would sort of wander up and say 'You don't know me, but we're related'".
On the issue of Iraq, Mr Blair insisted that Britain went to war for the right reasons, and that a previous policy of appeasement towards Saddam Hussein in the 1980s had led to the Iran-Iraq war and a million casualties.
Everyday reflections
He denied thinking that his Christian beliefs meant that he considered his decisions at the time of the invasion to be automatically the right thing to do.
"I certainly don't believe that there is a Christian conviction that is superior one way or another on what the right thing to do is."
He said the decision to invade Iraq was something he reflected on every day.
Mr Blair added that his religious beliefs help him - accepting that there is a God can be frightening but it is also a source of comfort.
He also spoke about the motivations of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rejected arguments that British foreign policy has radicalised Muslims.
"I think actually these acts of terrorism are utterly evil, yes. And when you think of the numbers of wholly innocent people that have died... I say the responsibility lies with the people doing the terrorism, 'cos there's no reason for them to do the terrorism."
Belief is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 10 Friday April at 2300 BST.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Apr-08-Magnificent Mohler on the Islamic Culture Clash
President Barack Obama has put the issue of Islam front and center on the international stage. His visit to Turkey, and his very public statements to the Muslim world, have raised a host of questions at home and abroad.
In his speech to the Turkish parliament on Monday, President Obama declared: "The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam." He went on to say that "our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people."
But the President also spoke of his "deep appreciation for the Islamic faith." Here is the statement in context:
I also want to be clear that America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world -- including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them.
At a press conference in Turkey, the President made yet another statement:
"One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
On CNN with host Roland Martin on Monday night, I said this:
"I think President Obama rightly said that the United States is not at war with Islam. I think that's a very helpful clarification. But you can't take Islam out of the whole civilizational struggle we are in, not only in the war on terror, but, frankly, going back for centuries, coming up with a definition of what a good civilization would look like and how a society ought to be arranged."
I do think that President Obama was correct in stating that the United States is not at war with Islam. This is not only important in terms of international diplomacy, but also in terms of constitutional authority. The government of United States has no right or authority to declare war on any religion.
We can understand the political context, especially as the President was in Turkey. Given the confusions rampant in the Muslim world, that is a crucial clarification. Of course, a quick review of the statements of President George W. Bush will reveal that he said much the same thing, over and over again.
The fact that President Obama made these comments in Turkey is very important. Throughout the Muslim world, most Muslims do see the United States as, in effect, at war with Islam. Classical Islam understands no real distinction between religion and the state, but instead establishes a unitary society. Thus, when a foreign power like the United States invades a Muslim nation like Iraq, most Muslims see this as a war against Islam.
While specific forms of government vary in the Islamic world, this general understanding holds true. Unlike New Testament Christianity, Islam is essentially a territorial religion including all lands under submission to the rule of the Qur'an. The President was in Turkey when he made these statements, and Turkey is usually defined in the media as having a secular government. Indeed, the Turkish constitution even requires a secular government. But, as anyone who has visited Turkey knows, this requires a very unusual definition of what it means to be secular.
Being Muslim is part of what the Turkish people and government call "Turkishness," a unifying concept that goes all the way back to Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Offending "Turkishness" is a criminal act in Turkey. The Turkish government is the steward of every one of the seemingly countless mosques within the nation and it pays the imams. Thus, Turkey is a Muslim nation with a secular government, but its secular character would not be seen as anything close to secular on an American model.
In this light, President Obama's statement that America is not a Christian country is also both accurate and helpful, though he is being criticized by many conservative Christians for making the claim. His clarification, offered in Muslim Turkey, establishes as a matter of public fact the reality that our American constitutional system is very different from what is found in the Muslim world -- and even in Turkey itself.
Furthermore, if the United States is to be understood as a Christian nation in the same sense that most nations in the Islamic world consider themselves to be Muslim nations, then America is at war with Islam.
The controversy over the President's remarks in this context are misplaced. There is indeed a controversy over whether it is appropriate to call America a Christian nation in the sense that Americans would even make such a claim -- but the context in Turkey and the Muslim world is very different. Do American Christians really believe that Christianity benefits by being associated with all that America represents in the Muslim world? To many Muslims, America appears as the great fountain of pornography, debased entertainments, abortion, and sexual revolution. Does it help our witness to Christ that all this would be associated in the Muslim mind with "Christian" America?
Beyond any historical doubt, the United States was established by founders whose worldview was shaped, in most cases quite self-consciously, by the Christian faith. The founding principles of this nation flow from a biblical logic and have been sustained by the fact that most Americans have considered themselves to be Christians and have operated out of a basically Christian frame of moral reference. America is a nation whose citizens are overwhelmingly identified as Christians and the American experiment is inconceivable without the foundation established by Christian moral assumptions.
But America is not, by definition, a Christian nation in any helpful sense. The secularists and enemies of the faith make this argument for any number of hostile and antagonistic reasons, and they offer many false arguments as well. But this should not prompt American Christian to make bad arguments of our own.
I criticize President Obama, not for stating that America is not at war with Islam, but for failing to be honest in clarifying that we do face a great civilizational challenge in Islam. Islam is, in effect, the single most vital competitor to Western ideals of civilization on the world scene. The logic of Islam is to bring every square inch of this planet under submission to the rule of the Qur'an. Classical Islam divides the world into the "World of Islam" and the "World of War." In this latter world the struggle to bring the society under submission to the Qur'an is still ongoing.
President Obama also created his own confusion over these issues, subverting his own main point. If America is not at war with Islam, it would seem unhelpful for the Obama administration to now refer, against previous American practice, to Iran as "The Islamic Republic of Iran." Similarly, some of his words and gestures during his trip seemed overly indulgent toward Islam -- especially as these words and gestures would have been interpreted in the larger Islamic world.
This ambition drives the Muslim world -- and each faithful Muslim -- to hope, pray, and work for the submission of the whole world to the Qur'an. Clearly, most Muslims are not willing to employ terrorism in order to achieve this goal. Nevertheless, it remains the goal.
Islam and the West offer two very different and fundamentally irreconcilable visions of society. While we are certainly not a nation at war with Islam, we are a nation that faces a huge challenge from the Islamic world -- a challenge that includes terrorism, but also a much larger civilizational ambition that remains central. Anyone standing in Istanbul, the historic seat of Ottoman power, should certainly recognize that fact.
As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and a minister of the Gospel, my primary concern about Islam is not civilizational or geopolitical, but theological. I believe that Jesus Christ is indeed, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and that no one comes to the Father but by Him [John 14:6]. Salvation is found only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of Christ is the only message that saves.
I can agree with President Obama that Islam has produced cultural wonders, but I have to see it more fundamentally as a belief system that is taking millions upon millions of persons spiritually captive -- leaving them under the curse of sin and without hope of salvation.
For Christians, regardless of nationality, this is the great challenge that should be our urgent concern. Our concern is not mainly political, but theological and spiritual. And, all things considered, Islam almost surely represents the greatest challenge to Christian evangelism of our times.
The Challenge of Islam -- A Christian Perspective
Posted: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 at 4:20 am ET
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php
In his speech to the Turkish parliament on Monday, President Obama declared: "The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam." He went on to say that "our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people."
But the President also spoke of his "deep appreciation for the Islamic faith." Here is the statement in context:
I also want to be clear that America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world -- including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them.
At a press conference in Turkey, the President made yet another statement:
"One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
On CNN with host Roland Martin on Monday night, I said this:
"I think President Obama rightly said that the United States is not at war with Islam. I think that's a very helpful clarification. But you can't take Islam out of the whole civilizational struggle we are in, not only in the war on terror, but, frankly, going back for centuries, coming up with a definition of what a good civilization would look like and how a society ought to be arranged."
I do think that President Obama was correct in stating that the United States is not at war with Islam. This is not only important in terms of international diplomacy, but also in terms of constitutional authority. The government of United States has no right or authority to declare war on any religion.
We can understand the political context, especially as the President was in Turkey. Given the confusions rampant in the Muslim world, that is a crucial clarification. Of course, a quick review of the statements of President George W. Bush will reveal that he said much the same thing, over and over again.
The fact that President Obama made these comments in Turkey is very important. Throughout the Muslim world, most Muslims do see the United States as, in effect, at war with Islam. Classical Islam understands no real distinction between religion and the state, but instead establishes a unitary society. Thus, when a foreign power like the United States invades a Muslim nation like Iraq, most Muslims see this as a war against Islam.
While specific forms of government vary in the Islamic world, this general understanding holds true. Unlike New Testament Christianity, Islam is essentially a territorial religion including all lands under submission to the rule of the Qur'an. The President was in Turkey when he made these statements, and Turkey is usually defined in the media as having a secular government. Indeed, the Turkish constitution even requires a secular government. But, as anyone who has visited Turkey knows, this requires a very unusual definition of what it means to be secular.
Being Muslim is part of what the Turkish people and government call "Turkishness," a unifying concept that goes all the way back to Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Offending "Turkishness" is a criminal act in Turkey. The Turkish government is the steward of every one of the seemingly countless mosques within the nation and it pays the imams. Thus, Turkey is a Muslim nation with a secular government, but its secular character would not be seen as anything close to secular on an American model.
In this light, President Obama's statement that America is not a Christian country is also both accurate and helpful, though he is being criticized by many conservative Christians for making the claim. His clarification, offered in Muslim Turkey, establishes as a matter of public fact the reality that our American constitutional system is very different from what is found in the Muslim world -- and even in Turkey itself.
Furthermore, if the United States is to be understood as a Christian nation in the same sense that most nations in the Islamic world consider themselves to be Muslim nations, then America is at war with Islam.
The controversy over the President's remarks in this context are misplaced. There is indeed a controversy over whether it is appropriate to call America a Christian nation in the sense that Americans would even make such a claim -- but the context in Turkey and the Muslim world is very different. Do American Christians really believe that Christianity benefits by being associated with all that America represents in the Muslim world? To many Muslims, America appears as the great fountain of pornography, debased entertainments, abortion, and sexual revolution. Does it help our witness to Christ that all this would be associated in the Muslim mind with "Christian" America?
Beyond any historical doubt, the United States was established by founders whose worldview was shaped, in most cases quite self-consciously, by the Christian faith. The founding principles of this nation flow from a biblical logic and have been sustained by the fact that most Americans have considered themselves to be Christians and have operated out of a basically Christian frame of moral reference. America is a nation whose citizens are overwhelmingly identified as Christians and the American experiment is inconceivable without the foundation established by Christian moral assumptions.
But America is not, by definition, a Christian nation in any helpful sense. The secularists and enemies of the faith make this argument for any number of hostile and antagonistic reasons, and they offer many false arguments as well. But this should not prompt American Christian to make bad arguments of our own.
I criticize President Obama, not for stating that America is not at war with Islam, but for failing to be honest in clarifying that we do face a great civilizational challenge in Islam. Islam is, in effect, the single most vital competitor to Western ideals of civilization on the world scene. The logic of Islam is to bring every square inch of this planet under submission to the rule of the Qur'an. Classical Islam divides the world into the "World of Islam" and the "World of War." In this latter world the struggle to bring the society under submission to the Qur'an is still ongoing.
President Obama also created his own confusion over these issues, subverting his own main point. If America is not at war with Islam, it would seem unhelpful for the Obama administration to now refer, against previous American practice, to Iran as "The Islamic Republic of Iran." Similarly, some of his words and gestures during his trip seemed overly indulgent toward Islam -- especially as these words and gestures would have been interpreted in the larger Islamic world.
This ambition drives the Muslim world -- and each faithful Muslim -- to hope, pray, and work for the submission of the whole world to the Qur'an. Clearly, most Muslims are not willing to employ terrorism in order to achieve this goal. Nevertheless, it remains the goal.
Islam and the West offer two very different and fundamentally irreconcilable visions of society. While we are certainly not a nation at war with Islam, we are a nation that faces a huge challenge from the Islamic world -- a challenge that includes terrorism, but also a much larger civilizational ambition that remains central. Anyone standing in Istanbul, the historic seat of Ottoman power, should certainly recognize that fact.
As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and a minister of the Gospel, my primary concern about Islam is not civilizational or geopolitical, but theological. I believe that Jesus Christ is indeed, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and that no one comes to the Father but by Him [John 14:6]. Salvation is found only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of Christ is the only message that saves.
I can agree with President Obama that Islam has produced cultural wonders, but I have to see it more fundamentally as a belief system that is taking millions upon millions of persons spiritually captive -- leaving them under the curse of sin and without hope of salvation.
For Christians, regardless of nationality, this is the great challenge that should be our urgent concern. Our concern is not mainly political, but theological and spiritual. And, all things considered, Islam almost surely represents the greatest challenge to Christian evangelism of our times.
The Challenge of Islam -- A Christian Perspective
Posted: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 at 4:20 am ET
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php
Apr-08-No More Neutered Males in Our Pulpits Please.
Deuteronomy 23:1
"He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. NKJV
Served With Sago
They disembarked the ship at ‘Risk Point’ on the River Fly and were invited by the fierce Tribesmen into their longhouse for a meal. Little did they know that they were in fact the main ingredient of that meal. In just a few moments the stone clubs smashed into the back of their heads and then just as quickly, a bone dagger was thrust downwards into their gullets and their heads immediately sawn off their bodies with a bamboo knife. The headless corpses were then given to the women of the tribe, the flesh of which was removed and then cooked and mixed with sago, which in turn, was consumed with gladness that very day. It was via this most terrible route, that the younger missionary, Oliver Tomkins and the sixty year old walking legend of Rev. James Chalmers (Tamate, the Great Heart of Papua New Guinea,) entered into heaven.
Chalmers was known as 'Tamate,' simply because the Tribes people he took the Gospel to, could not pronounce his real name. Tamate stuck! Indeed, he stuck with his task and duty for over twenty years without taking a furlough, lost two wives to exhaustion and sickness, was shipwrecked at least four times and was in constant danger every other day and twice on Sundays! He was a sold out, eccentric man of God, a man’s man of genuine loveable character, making friends and followers ranging from Robert Louise Stevenson to even ‘Bully’ Hayes, that most infamous 6 foot 4 inched, 4 foot round barrel chested pirate from Ohio! There is no time tonight to tell you of his deeds amongst the fierce, live nose biting, eating, battling cannibals, which he came to take the Gospel to. Men like him would find no place in the churches of today. Indeed I wonder if their spirit if now placed among us, would most naturally turn to arson and burn our buildings down around our girly heads? Ladies please, no offence intended.
Whenever I read of brethren of this stature, for what mighty warriors were both they and their dear Deborahs’, I am struck by two things.
First of course is their daring, their dedication to duty and their utter death to themselves. The stories of these heroes of the faith need to be reintroduced to our young people of today, who God help us, are more familiar with the current Californian, white teeth teenaged idol, than any of these real giants. We are breeding pussy cats dear friends, pussy cats instead of lions, and when these cosseted little kittens finally do get older, all they will do is pea on their parents, eat processed salmon from a can and become incontinent on our carpet. At least they can sing a good song and play a mean guitar, I mean that’s got to count for something? The Christian education of our children needs some meat injecting into it that’s for sure!
Secondly, the brutal method of their departure is so contrary to the very false promises which is so much spouted lately from our pulpits by Pastoral pussy cats wearing velvet collars with dangling silver bells. It seems to me, God help us, that these pussy cat silver balls are the only dangly bits that will ever be let near the testosterone free areas of our pulpits. Don’t you know that neutered males can NEVER enter the service of God! Yet there they are and friends, they can do nothing but lie to their congregations because they have already lied to themselves and sold themselves to softness!
Am I mad? Or is it really the Parididdle of the Paraclete I hear, as Drake’s drum beats once more? Or is it just my simple, wishful thinking, my desperate personal longing, to hear the roar of lions in our land once more?
"He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. NKJV
Served With Sago
They disembarked the ship at ‘Risk Point’ on the River Fly and were invited by the fierce Tribesmen into their longhouse for a meal. Little did they know that they were in fact the main ingredient of that meal. In just a few moments the stone clubs smashed into the back of their heads and then just as quickly, a bone dagger was thrust downwards into their gullets and their heads immediately sawn off their bodies with a bamboo knife. The headless corpses were then given to the women of the tribe, the flesh of which was removed and then cooked and mixed with sago, which in turn, was consumed with gladness that very day. It was via this most terrible route, that the younger missionary, Oliver Tomkins and the sixty year old walking legend of Rev. James Chalmers (Tamate, the Great Heart of Papua New Guinea,) entered into heaven.
Chalmers was known as 'Tamate,' simply because the Tribes people he took the Gospel to, could not pronounce his real name. Tamate stuck! Indeed, he stuck with his task and duty for over twenty years without taking a furlough, lost two wives to exhaustion and sickness, was shipwrecked at least four times and was in constant danger every other day and twice on Sundays! He was a sold out, eccentric man of God, a man’s man of genuine loveable character, making friends and followers ranging from Robert Louise Stevenson to even ‘Bully’ Hayes, that most infamous 6 foot 4 inched, 4 foot round barrel chested pirate from Ohio! There is no time tonight to tell you of his deeds amongst the fierce, live nose biting, eating, battling cannibals, which he came to take the Gospel to. Men like him would find no place in the churches of today. Indeed I wonder if their spirit if now placed among us, would most naturally turn to arson and burn our buildings down around our girly heads? Ladies please, no offence intended.
Whenever I read of brethren of this stature, for what mighty warriors were both they and their dear Deborahs’, I am struck by two things.
First of course is their daring, their dedication to duty and their utter death to themselves. The stories of these heroes of the faith need to be reintroduced to our young people of today, who God help us, are more familiar with the current Californian, white teeth teenaged idol, than any of these real giants. We are breeding pussy cats dear friends, pussy cats instead of lions, and when these cosseted little kittens finally do get older, all they will do is pea on their parents, eat processed salmon from a can and become incontinent on our carpet. At least they can sing a good song and play a mean guitar, I mean that’s got to count for something? The Christian education of our children needs some meat injecting into it that’s for sure!
Secondly, the brutal method of their departure is so contrary to the very false promises which is so much spouted lately from our pulpits by Pastoral pussy cats wearing velvet collars with dangling silver bells. It seems to me, God help us, that these pussy cat silver balls are the only dangly bits that will ever be let near the testosterone free areas of our pulpits. Don’t you know that neutered males can NEVER enter the service of God! Yet there they are and friends, they can do nothing but lie to their congregations because they have already lied to themselves and sold themselves to softness!
Am I mad? Or is it really the Parididdle of the Paraclete I hear, as Drake’s drum beats once more? Or is it just my simple, wishful thinking, my desperate personal longing, to hear the roar of lions in our land once more?
Monday, April 6, 2009
Apr-06-My Favourite African American
Mr Keyes came to speak at a Pro-Life fundraiser I attended in South Florida- Excellent--
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Apr-03-The Churches BIG UGLY HEAD
Dream Word – HUMBLE
Galatians 2:9-10
and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do. NKJV
The Bones Of The Elephant Man
Someone commented regarding God, that ‘The Invisible God is sat on a cloud somewhere, looking at people who break His ten commandments and then on their sad demise, will throw them into a molten and ever burning hell forever and forever for doing so! BUT He loves you! Yes He loves you and He needs your money. He always needs money! He is all powerful and all perfect and all knowing and all wise, but somehow, He can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars every year and they pay no taxes and yet, they always need a little more.’ This, many people have commented, ‘Is nothing but male bovine manure’ and frankly, I would agree.
I do not want to deal with the gross contextual inaccuracies of the first part of that statement, as it simply points out the two glaring facts of the twentieth century, those being, that post modern man does not know the God of the Bible and most Christians find the full revelation of God in the Bible, to be rather troubling, so much so, they don’t really like Him either and much prefer the watered down version presented by pale and slick preachers, sliding them slippery-elm like words, from behind not so pure, Perspex pulpits. No, it is the latter part of that opening statement that I would like to look at tonight, which says that ‘God needs money.’
Religion has always been a multi-million dollar industry and even when the leaders are not stealing all the cream, then churches of the day always present their folks with a vision budget, the top three line items reflecting the Old Testament Temple requirements (in this order usually) of monies for personnel, monies for premises and monies for programmes. Local churches meeting in buildings with paid staff and programs to get and keep the pew punters in there, will always be asking for money. So what do you do? What do you have to do? Well, ask! That’s what I say! Lay out your plans and get the funding, ask! But please, stop telling people it’s God that needs the money! That’s just male bovine manure.
I have been to too many vision casting meetings, building drive meetings, dream casting meetings, end of year, beginning of year meetings all which in the end have focused on money and frankly I have to tell you friends that the most important item of local mission, foreign missions and money for them, have never been on the top three line items. Mission giving is there mind you, it makes an appearance, kind of, maybe, sometimes, but hey, charity begins at home and most of us have very costly local home churches.
Today I returned from the residing place of the bones of the elephant man, the Royal London Hospital. A light, set in the continued dark area of White Chapel area of continual immigrant turnover.Over the years it has seen French Heugenots, Irish and then Jewish immigrants and now Bengali Muslims. Indeed, the 4000 seat East London Mosque also now resides in this area. There is no connection to this, but even Jack the ripper did his dirty work around these prostitute ridden and continually gospel darkened streets. I was visiting my brother who has a ministry right there amongst the sick of every kind. It seemed every can carrying junkie with the saddest story in the world to tell you, seemed to know him and to respect him. One of his many friends was an old Jamaican Christian lady, who armed only with an old collapsible table upon which she laid out her old second hand bibles, for several years now, had been preaching the word to Muslims. She has had her table over turned many times and had indeed, feared for her life on more than one occasion. Still she continues on, right there in London’s Yashmacaddam streets. Welcome to England.
The only monies these two ministries have are what the two good servants bring to it. They ask for none, but simply in the most spiritually hardest and darkest places of this old girl of a city, spread what goodness and light they can. Frankly, I am not sure you could pay me enough to do either ministry! Yet, these two ministries are more intriguing than even the bones of the elephant man, still kept in the Royal London Hospital, who by the way, because the great size of his head, crushed and closed his own wind pipe, when he laid himself down to a suicidal sleep aged just twenty eight years.
As long as the church continues to serve itself, and in doing so perpetually prattles on about money, money, money, in both the name and need of God, it shall always lay itself open to such terrible criticisms like those contained in my opening paragraph. As long as my brother, my black warrior sister and people of their like, shall walk the streets of Whitechapel in both simple truth and unpaid goodness, such criticism will always be confounded!
I have no idea of specific times but friends, the grotesque largess of our Laodicean church diseased head, laced with the grey lice of all creeping compromise, has been finally laid down on the bed of doomed destiny. Unless we are revived, then I reckon we too have but twenty eight years before our crushed windpipe shall remove the life totally from the lungs of our lost land.
Listen: -If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 NKJV
Galatians 2:9-10
and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do. NKJV
The Bones Of The Elephant Man
Someone commented regarding God, that ‘The Invisible God is sat on a cloud somewhere, looking at people who break His ten commandments and then on their sad demise, will throw them into a molten and ever burning hell forever and forever for doing so! BUT He loves you! Yes He loves you and He needs your money. He always needs money! He is all powerful and all perfect and all knowing and all wise, but somehow, He can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars every year and they pay no taxes and yet, they always need a little more.’ This, many people have commented, ‘Is nothing but male bovine manure’ and frankly, I would agree.
I do not want to deal with the gross contextual inaccuracies of the first part of that statement, as it simply points out the two glaring facts of the twentieth century, those being, that post modern man does not know the God of the Bible and most Christians find the full revelation of God in the Bible, to be rather troubling, so much so, they don’t really like Him either and much prefer the watered down version presented by pale and slick preachers, sliding them slippery-elm like words, from behind not so pure, Perspex pulpits. No, it is the latter part of that opening statement that I would like to look at tonight, which says that ‘God needs money.’
Religion has always been a multi-million dollar industry and even when the leaders are not stealing all the cream, then churches of the day always present their folks with a vision budget, the top three line items reflecting the Old Testament Temple requirements (in this order usually) of monies for personnel, monies for premises and monies for programmes. Local churches meeting in buildings with paid staff and programs to get and keep the pew punters in there, will always be asking for money. So what do you do? What do you have to do? Well, ask! That’s what I say! Lay out your plans and get the funding, ask! But please, stop telling people it’s God that needs the money! That’s just male bovine manure.
I have been to too many vision casting meetings, building drive meetings, dream casting meetings, end of year, beginning of year meetings all which in the end have focused on money and frankly I have to tell you friends that the most important item of local mission, foreign missions and money for them, have never been on the top three line items. Mission giving is there mind you, it makes an appearance, kind of, maybe, sometimes, but hey, charity begins at home and most of us have very costly local home churches.
Today I returned from the residing place of the bones of the elephant man, the Royal London Hospital. A light, set in the continued dark area of White Chapel area of continual immigrant turnover.Over the years it has seen French Heugenots, Irish and then Jewish immigrants and now Bengali Muslims. Indeed, the 4000 seat East London Mosque also now resides in this area. There is no connection to this, but even Jack the ripper did his dirty work around these prostitute ridden and continually gospel darkened streets. I was visiting my brother who has a ministry right there amongst the sick of every kind. It seemed every can carrying junkie with the saddest story in the world to tell you, seemed to know him and to respect him. One of his many friends was an old Jamaican Christian lady, who armed only with an old collapsible table upon which she laid out her old second hand bibles, for several years now, had been preaching the word to Muslims. She has had her table over turned many times and had indeed, feared for her life on more than one occasion. Still she continues on, right there in London’s Yashmacaddam streets. Welcome to England.
The only monies these two ministries have are what the two good servants bring to it. They ask for none, but simply in the most spiritually hardest and darkest places of this old girl of a city, spread what goodness and light they can. Frankly, I am not sure you could pay me enough to do either ministry! Yet, these two ministries are more intriguing than even the bones of the elephant man, still kept in the Royal London Hospital, who by the way, because the great size of his head, crushed and closed his own wind pipe, when he laid himself down to a suicidal sleep aged just twenty eight years.
As long as the church continues to serve itself, and in doing so perpetually prattles on about money, money, money, in both the name and need of God, it shall always lay itself open to such terrible criticisms like those contained in my opening paragraph. As long as my brother, my black warrior sister and people of their like, shall walk the streets of Whitechapel in both simple truth and unpaid goodness, such criticism will always be confounded!
I have no idea of specific times but friends, the grotesque largess of our Laodicean church diseased head, laced with the grey lice of all creeping compromise, has been finally laid down on the bed of doomed destiny. Unless we are revived, then I reckon we too have but twenty eight years before our crushed windpipe shall remove the life totally from the lungs of our lost land.
Listen: -If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 NKJV
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Mar-26-Marie Stopes - Condoms and Murder.
Imagine if you will, The Hitler Euthanasia Clinic or maybe the Pol Pot Philanthropic Dispatch Center for Infants with Issues and Parents with Problems. Have you got the grotesqueness of that? So, as from today, abortion clinics will be advertising their murder facilities on television.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7964826.stm
Why? Well of course it's the only way to tackle teenage pregnancy and I am sure that Hitler and Pol Pot would most surely agree.
Did I tell you we used to live in South Florida, adjacent to the city of Hialeah?
http://www.operationrescue.org/archives/dead-baby-closes-florida-abortion-mill/
There's a nice little abortion clinic there that murders live babies both in and out of the womb, throwing the corpse in a cardboard box and leaving it in a cupboard. After all, what's a baby nowadays? Just a b bag of unwanted blood and guts, just offal and unwanted off scouring of the womb fit for the dustbin.
So now the UK is advertising murder on television.
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO WILL HELP US SET UP A PRO-LIFE CENTRE IN TUNBRIDGE WELLS. WE ONLY NEED ONE THING AT THE MOMENT..MONEY AND LOTS OF IT. SEND IT TO ME NOW!
Cheques/checks in ANY currency will do.
Rev. Farrell
WAY PAST THE TIPPING POINT
146 Broadmead
Tunbridge Wells
TN2 5NN
thank you.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO ALL YOR FRIENDS.
for more contact information see
www.whisperingword.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7964826.stm
Why? Well of course it's the only way to tackle teenage pregnancy and I am sure that Hitler and Pol Pot would most surely agree.
Did I tell you we used to live in South Florida, adjacent to the city of Hialeah?
http://www.operationrescue.org/archives/dead-baby-closes-florida-abortion-mill/
There's a nice little abortion clinic there that murders live babies both in and out of the womb, throwing the corpse in a cardboard box and leaving it in a cupboard. After all, what's a baby nowadays? Just a b bag of unwanted blood and guts, just offal and unwanted off scouring of the womb fit for the dustbin.
So now the UK is advertising murder on television.
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO WILL HELP US SET UP A PRO-LIFE CENTRE IN TUNBRIDGE WELLS. WE ONLY NEED ONE THING AT THE MOMENT..MONEY AND LOTS OF IT. SEND IT TO ME NOW!
Cheques/checks in ANY currency will do.
Rev. Farrell
WAY PAST THE TIPPING POINT
146 Broadmead
Tunbridge Wells
TN2 5NN
thank you.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO ALL YOR FRIENDS.
for more contact information see
www.whisperingword.com
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Mar-24-Of Parades and Pioneers
How easy it is for people to join a parade. To become part of a marching extravaganza once its under way and gathering steam, takes no real effort whatsoever. Yet the pride you will see exhibited on some peoples faces for being part of the parade, would make you think that they had been though the fears of the first step and the all the frustrations of conception and fatigues of birth, instead of just being a very small fry who had slipped into the big school now running upstream. Look at those smiling teeth though! WOW! Look at that chest all puffed out and proud as though they had contributed to the formation of the thing. Yup. it's just too easy to join a parade.
To pioneer a parade, ah now, that's another thing entirely. There are not many people, indeed they are so few in number you can almost drop the letter 'M' and say there are hardly ANY people willing to gamble there all on the starting of a parade. Interestingly, the same people who will join it and puff their chest out in pride are the same folk who will suck breath through their tooth in front of the pioneer, shake their head, grab their kids and run for the nursery and the large heated sanctuary. Sanctuary indeed, for that is what they need.
We need some gamblers willing to ride the riverboats of God Most High today. We need some pioneers, some folks willing to hazard their everything on something worthwhile, some people occupied with Whispers, disturbed by the ghosts silhouette of an almost present, indescribable something that takes them beyond the edges of cultivation, onto the seas of God, pushed out into the deeps where they and they alone shall see the wonders of the Lord.
Here's a well know poem for you - enjoy!
The Explorer - Rudyard Kipling
"There's no sense in going further--it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it--broke my land and sowed my crop--
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop:
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated--so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours--
Stole away with pack and ponies--left 'em drinking in the town;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labours
As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.
March by march I puzzled through em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line--drifted snow and naked boulders--
Felt free air astir to windward--knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.
'Thought to name it for the finder; but that night the Norther found me--
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me:--
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!"
Then I knew, the while I doubted--knew His Hand was certain o'er me.
Still--it might be self-delusion--scores of better men had died--
I could reach the township living, but . . . He knows what terror tore me . . .
But I didn't . . . but I didn't. I went down the other side.
Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows,
And I dropped again on desert--blasted earth, and blasting sky. . . .
I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by 'em;
I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy--for I threw a stone to try 'em.
"Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they spoke.
I remember going crazy. I remember that I knew it
When I heard myself hallooing to the funny folk I saw.
'Very full of dreams that desert, but my two legs took me through it . . .
And I used to watch 'em moving with the toes all black and raw.
But at last the country altered--White Man's country past disputing--
Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind--
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting.
Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.
Thence I ran my first rough survey--chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em--
Week by week I pried and sampled--week by week my findings grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom!
But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two!
Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers--
Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains!
'Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
Watched unharnassed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em--
Saw the plant to feed a people--up and waiting for the power!
Well I know who'll take the credit--all the clever chaps that followed-- Came, a dozen men together--never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes I'd hollowed.
They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers!
They will find my sites of townships--not the cities that I set there.
They will rediscover rivers--not my rivers heard at night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,
By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.
Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget--(barring samples)? No, not I!
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
But your wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.
Ores you'll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
(That should keep the railway-rates down), coal and iron at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!
Yes, your "Never-never country"--yes, your "edge of cultivation"
And "no sense in going further"--till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it, but--His Whisper came to Me!
Anyways I did a search on you tube for my favourite scene where Jimmy Stewart ( no one's face displays emotion like that mans can) discovers what became known as the Glenn Miller sound. It's inspirational. Here a man finds the indescribably which he has been looking for all his life. The Whisper turns into a voice. I just love it and thought I might share it with you. Be blessed.
To pioneer a parade, ah now, that's another thing entirely. There are not many people, indeed they are so few in number you can almost drop the letter 'M' and say there are hardly ANY people willing to gamble there all on the starting of a parade. Interestingly, the same people who will join it and puff their chest out in pride are the same folk who will suck breath through their tooth in front of the pioneer, shake their head, grab their kids and run for the nursery and the large heated sanctuary. Sanctuary indeed, for that is what they need.
We need some gamblers willing to ride the riverboats of God Most High today. We need some pioneers, some folks willing to hazard their everything on something worthwhile, some people occupied with Whispers, disturbed by the ghosts silhouette of an almost present, indescribable something that takes them beyond the edges of cultivation, onto the seas of God, pushed out into the deeps where they and they alone shall see the wonders of the Lord.
Here's a well know poem for you - enjoy!
The Explorer - Rudyard Kipling
"There's no sense in going further--it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it--broke my land and sowed my crop--
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop:
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated--so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours--
Stole away with pack and ponies--left 'em drinking in the town;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labours
As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.
March by march I puzzled through em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line--drifted snow and naked boulders--
Felt free air astir to windward--knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.
'Thought to name it for the finder; but that night the Norther found me--
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me:--
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!"
Then I knew, the while I doubted--knew His Hand was certain o'er me.
Still--it might be self-delusion--scores of better men had died--
I could reach the township living, but . . . He knows what terror tore me . . .
But I didn't . . . but I didn't. I went down the other side.
Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows,
And I dropped again on desert--blasted earth, and blasting sky. . . .
I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by 'em;
I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy--for I threw a stone to try 'em.
"Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they spoke.
I remember going crazy. I remember that I knew it
When I heard myself hallooing to the funny folk I saw.
'Very full of dreams that desert, but my two legs took me through it . . .
And I used to watch 'em moving with the toes all black and raw.
But at last the country altered--White Man's country past disputing--
Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind--
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting.
Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.
Thence I ran my first rough survey--chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em--
Week by week I pried and sampled--week by week my findings grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom!
But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two!
Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers--
Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains!
'Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
Watched unharnassed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em--
Saw the plant to feed a people--up and waiting for the power!
Well I know who'll take the credit--all the clever chaps that followed-- Came, a dozen men together--never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes I'd hollowed.
They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers!
They will find my sites of townships--not the cities that I set there.
They will rediscover rivers--not my rivers heard at night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,
By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.
Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget--(barring samples)? No, not I!
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
But your wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.
Ores you'll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
(That should keep the railway-rates down), coal and iron at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!
Yes, your "Never-never country"--yes, your "edge of cultivation"
And "no sense in going further"--till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it, but--His Whisper came to Me!
Anyways I did a search on you tube for my favourite scene where Jimmy Stewart ( no one's face displays emotion like that mans can) discovers what became known as the Glenn Miller sound. It's inspirational. Here a man finds the indescribably which he has been looking for all his life. The Whisper turns into a voice. I just love it and thought I might share it with you. Be blessed.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Mar-20-The Mega Church Manufacture of Spiritual Retards & Crippled Clown
Dream Word – MOVE
Jeremiah 3:15
And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. NKJV.
The Mega-Churh Manufacture of Spiritually Retarded, Crippled Clowns
The servants of Christ wash the feet of travelling men, journeying across this dirty world ever closer to both the heart and the city of Jesus. The servants of Christ, might retool these same journeymen, re-arm them, re-orient them, re-educate them maybe, reinforce them in the faith most certainly but shall surely return them to their journey, until the next and necessary pit stop, when they shall have the privilege to deal with a bigger, leaner, ever onward, ever upward ‘looker,’ than they previously had to service. For their journey, through both challenge and change, has brought to them increased personal strength and increased personal maturity and they have moved on, manned up, grown in both grace and truth! Grown in their appetite as journeyman, grown in that, their sight of the heavenly city is clearer, the smell of the green, green grass of their eternal home is that much more acute; their ears are more full of the sound of singing angels; their skin is more sensitive to the feeling and the flowing of the wind of the Spirit; their arms strong and lifted up; their feet full of peace, more certain, more sure and more directed in the way; their armour dented but bright; their sword bloodied yet sharper; the loins of their mind now being more lifted and focused; the belt of truth, tight and secure around the chiselled core of their being! es indeed, the servants of Christ, that is the pastors and leaders of the church of the living God, shall happily and with great thankfulness, wash the feet of such travelling men.
Now, this picture of growing and journeying strength, of maturing in grace and truth, I believe is a Biblical expectancy. However and unfortunately, this picture is in fact, to our Laodicean lot anyways, an unwanted and unsought for fantasy and ashamedly, for I speak as a shepherd, a foot washer for the journeying man, the shepherds are mostly to blame for this most sorry state of affairs. In my journeying around the Christendom and in my ministry to the same, I am tired of seeing many gigantic, staff led churches, doing everything for their congregations to justify their often too well paid existence, by enabling thousands of kindergarten kiddies to simply continue to languish on the breast and in so doing have created vast churches of sucklers and suckers, baby Christian clowns. It’s just pitiful.
All teachers must ensure that at some point, and the sooner the better by the way, that their pupils overtake them. Yes, all teachers must pull back the bow for eventual release. However, when teachers have students who never move on, and in North America especially, these stunted students attend churches in their tens of thousands, then two strange things will happen to the church. Watch this now, for first, the teachers themselves turn into smiling imbeciles, toting suitcases full of well worn platitudes and the odd blunt instrument, and secondly, their students will turn into spiritual cripples, retarded Christians, who of necessity, have to have their backside wiped for them and be personally spoon fed with poorly, pre-chewed rubbish. Such sad shepherding is not releasing strong disciples into their journey, but rather, is producing imbecilic imitations of Christ, who ride around the children’s race track, pulling into the same old pit stop for the same old problems, which will be dealt with by same old people in the same old inept, low octane, low expectation way. There is you see, no expectation or plan no daring demand, no challenging necessity for people to grow in grace and truth
I do not envy the shepherd, who has sold himself into such dismal drudgery and I pity the sheep that still suck on these strange, fat staff titties that such churches alluringly dangle before them, for neither the smiling and imbecilic teachers nor such crippled disciples, will stand in the fires which are to surely come upon us. It is out of such great concern that I speak so harshly tonight. Cool or not so cool, senior or otherwise, I pity the pastor that has to stand before Jesus and account for every empty, energy absent, wimp of a word which he has spoken. It will not bode well for such makers of retards.
Yes, if you are not changing and growing, then you are spiritually retarded. If you are not being re-armed, re-orientated, renewed, refreshed, re-educated and re-enforced in your faith to then be released into and served on, your destined journey, then you are being short changed, slowly killed, and are going nowhere. Indeed, you are purposefully being kept in your wheelchair and paying through the nose for that privilege. You are a spiritual retard and you have been fed and bred for it from what other imbeciles have termed the finest pulpits in the land.
I must confess, that at the moment, I can find no hope in my heart for such lost shepherds, locked into such a good looking and grossly debilitating system. However, I do believe there is some hope for those lost sheep who are sick of mommies milk and wanting at last, to take care of their own rear end. Yes there is hope for those sheep if they want it. The beginning of the answer is simple. Find some hard looking men and some greener pastures. Find some scarred and sun burnt shepherds moulded by the heart of Hosea and the sporting the look of Amos the iron man about them, and if they and the greener grass are over the hill and far away, then move there! Time is running out. For the sake of your poor retarded spirit, find a good restaurant that serves whole food, that makes you eat your greens, that measures your B.M.I. and coaches and cajoles you into becoming a muscular man, a man of the Word and the Spirit, a man that can survive in the field, form families and feed himself and them, teaching them to do the same. Find such a church and go to it.
The servants of Christ wash the feet of travelling men, journeying across this dirty world ever closer to both the heart and the city of Jesus.
Listen: - Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation — as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:14-18a
Jeremiah 3:15
And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. NKJV.
The Mega-Churh Manufacture of Spiritually Retarded, Crippled Clowns
The servants of Christ wash the feet of travelling men, journeying across this dirty world ever closer to both the heart and the city of Jesus. The servants of Christ, might retool these same journeymen, re-arm them, re-orient them, re-educate them maybe, reinforce them in the faith most certainly but shall surely return them to their journey, until the next and necessary pit stop, when they shall have the privilege to deal with a bigger, leaner, ever onward, ever upward ‘looker,’ than they previously had to service. For their journey, through both challenge and change, has brought to them increased personal strength and increased personal maturity and they have moved on, manned up, grown in both grace and truth! Grown in their appetite as journeyman, grown in that, their sight of the heavenly city is clearer, the smell of the green, green grass of their eternal home is that much more acute; their ears are more full of the sound of singing angels; their skin is more sensitive to the feeling and the flowing of the wind of the Spirit; their arms strong and lifted up; their feet full of peace, more certain, more sure and more directed in the way; their armour dented but bright; their sword bloodied yet sharper; the loins of their mind now being more lifted and focused; the belt of truth, tight and secure around the chiselled core of their being! es indeed, the servants of Christ, that is the pastors and leaders of the church of the living God, shall happily and with great thankfulness, wash the feet of such travelling men.
Now, this picture of growing and journeying strength, of maturing in grace and truth, I believe is a Biblical expectancy. However and unfortunately, this picture is in fact, to our Laodicean lot anyways, an unwanted and unsought for fantasy and ashamedly, for I speak as a shepherd, a foot washer for the journeying man, the shepherds are mostly to blame for this most sorry state of affairs. In my journeying around the Christendom and in my ministry to the same, I am tired of seeing many gigantic, staff led churches, doing everything for their congregations to justify their often too well paid existence, by enabling thousands of kindergarten kiddies to simply continue to languish on the breast and in so doing have created vast churches of sucklers and suckers, baby Christian clowns. It’s just pitiful.
All teachers must ensure that at some point, and the sooner the better by the way, that their pupils overtake them. Yes, all teachers must pull back the bow for eventual release. However, when teachers have students who never move on, and in North America especially, these stunted students attend churches in their tens of thousands, then two strange things will happen to the church. Watch this now, for first, the teachers themselves turn into smiling imbeciles, toting suitcases full of well worn platitudes and the odd blunt instrument, and secondly, their students will turn into spiritual cripples, retarded Christians, who of necessity, have to have their backside wiped for them and be personally spoon fed with poorly, pre-chewed rubbish. Such sad shepherding is not releasing strong disciples into their journey, but rather, is producing imbecilic imitations of Christ, who ride around the children’s race track, pulling into the same old pit stop for the same old problems, which will be dealt with by same old people in the same old inept, low octane, low expectation way. There is you see, no expectation or plan no daring demand, no challenging necessity for people to grow in grace and truth
I do not envy the shepherd, who has sold himself into such dismal drudgery and I pity the sheep that still suck on these strange, fat staff titties that such churches alluringly dangle before them, for neither the smiling and imbecilic teachers nor such crippled disciples, will stand in the fires which are to surely come upon us. It is out of such great concern that I speak so harshly tonight. Cool or not so cool, senior or otherwise, I pity the pastor that has to stand before Jesus and account for every empty, energy absent, wimp of a word which he has spoken. It will not bode well for such makers of retards.
Yes, if you are not changing and growing, then you are spiritually retarded. If you are not being re-armed, re-orientated, renewed, refreshed, re-educated and re-enforced in your faith to then be released into and served on, your destined journey, then you are being short changed, slowly killed, and are going nowhere. Indeed, you are purposefully being kept in your wheelchair and paying through the nose for that privilege. You are a spiritual retard and you have been fed and bred for it from what other imbeciles have termed the finest pulpits in the land.
I must confess, that at the moment, I can find no hope in my heart for such lost shepherds, locked into such a good looking and grossly debilitating system. However, I do believe there is some hope for those lost sheep who are sick of mommies milk and wanting at last, to take care of their own rear end. Yes there is hope for those sheep if they want it. The beginning of the answer is simple. Find some hard looking men and some greener pastures. Find some scarred and sun burnt shepherds moulded by the heart of Hosea and the sporting the look of Amos the iron man about them, and if they and the greener grass are over the hill and far away, then move there! Time is running out. For the sake of your poor retarded spirit, find a good restaurant that serves whole food, that makes you eat your greens, that measures your B.M.I. and coaches and cajoles you into becoming a muscular man, a man of the Word and the Spirit, a man that can survive in the field, form families and feed himself and them, teaching them to do the same. Find such a church and go to it.
The servants of Christ wash the feet of travelling men, journeying across this dirty world ever closer to both the heart and the city of Jesus.
Listen: - Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation — as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:14-18a
Friday, February 27, 2009
Feb-27-A Tale of Two Rotting Balls
A Tale of Two Rotting Balls
Acts 12:23, 24
Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God grew and multiplied.
In February AD303 Gelerius Velerius Maxiniamus issued an edict demanding the persecution of Christians. Lasting eight years, this last great persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire was often so violent, that even the pagans were disgusted.
In AD 311, while preparing for his twentieth anniversary celebrations as both Caesar and Augustus, Galerius was suddenly overcome by a serious disease. First, his genitals suffered a severe inflammation, followed by the growth of a deep ulcer, which was soon infested by worms, which casued the ulcer to began to swell and rot on his body. It was so bad, that some of Galerius' doctors were simply unable to endure the stench. Both they and others who failed to cure him, were executed immediately.
From his sickbed at Nicomedia on 30th April AD 311 Galerius issued an edict, which was confirmed by his fellow emperors, canceling the persecution of the Christians. His strategy had failed. The suffering of the Christians may have even won them the sympathy of the empire. By swollen balls and the stench of a rotting ulcer, the tide of the vicious battle had turned once again to the favor of Jesus Christ the Lord.
Our enemy is defeated. He is fighting a delaying battle. He cannot win. The gates of hell will not prevail against the expansion of God’s kingdom. Nonetheless, be sure of this dear friends, it is a vicious and costly conflict. Millions of our brothers and sisters have perished in it and even today, the church is openly slaughtered in many parts of this poor world. Against us, the Lord’s people, our enemy’s anger is venomous. Given a chance, he would once again embark on vicious persecution even on these very shores in which we live. We must prayerfully and actively fight to maintain and prosper that which generations of Christians have fought and died for.
For us, the people of God, to lay dormant at such a time as this, when all our walls are falling down around our ears, is such a lying, louse ridden lethargy, that I believe it can only be ascribed to demonic activity! The church of God must rise up from its lethargic lounging and fight the good fight today. If not, then once again we shall surely begin to pay a very high price in this deadly conflict right here on our own blood bought land.
Acts 12:23, 24
Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God grew and multiplied.
In February AD303 Gelerius Velerius Maxiniamus issued an edict demanding the persecution of Christians. Lasting eight years, this last great persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire was often so violent, that even the pagans were disgusted.
In AD 311, while preparing for his twentieth anniversary celebrations as both Caesar and Augustus, Galerius was suddenly overcome by a serious disease. First, his genitals suffered a severe inflammation, followed by the growth of a deep ulcer, which was soon infested by worms, which casued the ulcer to began to swell and rot on his body. It was so bad, that some of Galerius' doctors were simply unable to endure the stench. Both they and others who failed to cure him, were executed immediately.
From his sickbed at Nicomedia on 30th April AD 311 Galerius issued an edict, which was confirmed by his fellow emperors, canceling the persecution of the Christians. His strategy had failed. The suffering of the Christians may have even won them the sympathy of the empire. By swollen balls and the stench of a rotting ulcer, the tide of the vicious battle had turned once again to the favor of Jesus Christ the Lord.
Our enemy is defeated. He is fighting a delaying battle. He cannot win. The gates of hell will not prevail against the expansion of God’s kingdom. Nonetheless, be sure of this dear friends, it is a vicious and costly conflict. Millions of our brothers and sisters have perished in it and even today, the church is openly slaughtered in many parts of this poor world. Against us, the Lord’s people, our enemy’s anger is venomous. Given a chance, he would once again embark on vicious persecution even on these very shores in which we live. We must prayerfully and actively fight to maintain and prosper that which generations of Christians have fought and died for.
For us, the people of God, to lay dormant at such a time as this, when all our walls are falling down around our ears, is such a lying, louse ridden lethargy, that I believe it can only be ascribed to demonic activity! The church of God must rise up from its lethargic lounging and fight the good fight today. If not, then once again we shall surely begin to pay a very high price in this deadly conflict right here on our own blood bought land.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
MOHLER on The Times & Porrit's Death Culture
"The Ghost at the Table" -- Are Kids a Threat to the Environment?
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php
The contemporary clash of worldviews comes immediately into view with controversies over children, contraception, abortion, and now the environment. A recent controversy in Great Britain makes this point all too clear.
Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the British government's Sustainable Development Commission, told The Times [London] that it is high time that the government moves to limit family size in the nation -- all in the name of the environment.
From the Times:
“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.
“I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the “p” word.”
In reality, a loss of total population is a greater threat to his nation than a new baby boom. But an antinatalist worldview has been part of the extreme left of the environmental movement for a long time, driven by warnings of impending disaster by a "population explosion."
Amazingly, the prophets of population doom seem unembarrassed by the failures of their prophecies. Figures such as Paul Ehrlich warned decades ago that the world would be devoid of human life by now, snuffed out by ecological disaster and wiped out by famine.
Now, Jonathon Porritt describes family size as "the ghost at the table." Well, in Britain it is no ghost. Just four months ago Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, suggested in an interview with the very same newspaper that curbing family size might be the answer to the current economic crisis. "Basically, it’s a little embarrassing for everybody," said the husband of the monarch. "No one quite knows how to handle it. Nobody wants their family life to be interfered with by the government.”
Porritt proposes that the British government should take on the issue of family size by making clear that having more than two children is irresponsible.
He went on to argue that each child "born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland - an area the size of Trafalgar Square." The reduction of a child to a "carbon footprint" is about as twisted a formula as can be imagined. A child is compared to the loss of "2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland."
If his extremism is not clear enough, consider this section of the paper's report:
Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.
So this government official is quite willing to call for a shift from funding for cures for illness to funding for abortion.
The Culture of Death most often hides behind carefully measured statements and euphemisms. Every once in a while, the mask drops, and this is one of those cases. In the name of sustainable development this official calls for limiting family size, and compares the value of a human child to that of an oak woodland. In the name of environmentalism, he argues for shifting government financial support from finding the cures for illnesses in the body to funding the killing of babies in the womb.
Christians must be reminded that we do bear responsibility as stewards of God's creation. But we cannot be faithful in that stewardship if we adopt the logic of the Culture of Death. Human beings cannot be reduced to any cold economic or ecological value. Each human being is made in God's image, and each can be part of the fulfillment of our stewardship.
When a government official talks this way about what he calls "the ghost at the table," we are witnessing an ominous shift in the debate. Thanks to this interview, the ghost is now there for all to see.
_____________________
We discussed this issue on Tuesday' edition of The Albert Mohler Program. Listen here.
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php
The contemporary clash of worldviews comes immediately into view with controversies over children, contraception, abortion, and now the environment. A recent controversy in Great Britain makes this point all too clear.
Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the British government's Sustainable Development Commission, told The Times [London] that it is high time that the government moves to limit family size in the nation -- all in the name of the environment.
From the Times:
“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.
“I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the “p” word.”
In reality, a loss of total population is a greater threat to his nation than a new baby boom. But an antinatalist worldview has been part of the extreme left of the environmental movement for a long time, driven by warnings of impending disaster by a "population explosion."
Amazingly, the prophets of population doom seem unembarrassed by the failures of their prophecies. Figures such as Paul Ehrlich warned decades ago that the world would be devoid of human life by now, snuffed out by ecological disaster and wiped out by famine.
Now, Jonathon Porritt describes family size as "the ghost at the table." Well, in Britain it is no ghost. Just four months ago Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, suggested in an interview with the very same newspaper that curbing family size might be the answer to the current economic crisis. "Basically, it’s a little embarrassing for everybody," said the husband of the monarch. "No one quite knows how to handle it. Nobody wants their family life to be interfered with by the government.”
Porritt proposes that the British government should take on the issue of family size by making clear that having more than two children is irresponsible.
He went on to argue that each child "born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland - an area the size of Trafalgar Square." The reduction of a child to a "carbon footprint" is about as twisted a formula as can be imagined. A child is compared to the loss of "2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland."
If his extremism is not clear enough, consider this section of the paper's report:
Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.
So this government official is quite willing to call for a shift from funding for cures for illness to funding for abortion.
The Culture of Death most often hides behind carefully measured statements and euphemisms. Every once in a while, the mask drops, and this is one of those cases. In the name of sustainable development this official calls for limiting family size, and compares the value of a human child to that of an oak woodland. In the name of environmentalism, he argues for shifting government financial support from finding the cures for illnesses in the body to funding the killing of babies in the womb.
Christians must be reminded that we do bear responsibility as stewards of God's creation. But we cannot be faithful in that stewardship if we adopt the logic of the Culture of Death. Human beings cannot be reduced to any cold economic or ecological value. Each human being is made in God's image, and each can be part of the fulfillment of our stewardship.
When a government official talks this way about what he calls "the ghost at the table," we are witnessing an ominous shift in the debate. Thanks to this interview, the ghost is now there for all to see.
_____________________
We discussed this issue on Tuesday' edition of The Albert Mohler Program. Listen here.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Jan-30-It Would Appear That John Piper Agrees With Me!
It Would Appear That John Piper Agrees With Me!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Against Obama
You can guarantee that the President of the USA does not care two hoots about me. Yet he needs to.
In just a few days in office, he has lifted the 'global gag' imposed by President Bush and allowed American funding to once again flow to external out of country organisations that promote and practice abortion. He did this the day after he signed laws allowing the experimentation of embryonic stem cell research. Obama begins his presidency with the promotion of the culture of death.
The gay parade following the presidential parade, the prayers by the Episcopalian gay bishop, his willingness to engage in 'dialogue' with his avowed enemies and exporters of national death and destruction, are all indicative of national moral weakness and peace at any price.
Obama will with great panache and style, to the gleeful cheers of the liberal left and goggle eyed smiles of the young and the dumb, continually sign away the birthright of the American people, weaken them on the world stage and slowly remove them from it. Look up America! The countdown for your drastic diminishment has started.
The UK is already finished. Frightened Christians are cowering in the corner, clasping their ideas to their own shaking bosom, whilst the state church is STILL arguing about who they can have sex with.
Meanwhile Sky news today reports that in our country which has the highest teenage rate of pregnancy in Europe, 25% of children are seeking abortion advice from teachers and 66% of teachers say that school sex education should have information regarding termintaiton options.
We want to start at Crisis pregnancy centre in Tunbridge Wells for servicing East Sussex and Kent. Can you help us? Will you help us to do this?
I know like everything we do in our nation now it is very much a closing of the door after the horse has bolted and bolted it has. Never the less, I have to be able to stand before my Maker and look myself in the eye in the mirror in a morning and be able to say I did something. I didn't just roll over.
If you can help - if you can't live with yourself - contact me today.
In just a few days in office, he has lifted the 'global gag' imposed by President Bush and allowed American funding to once again flow to external out of country organisations that promote and practice abortion. He did this the day after he signed laws allowing the experimentation of embryonic stem cell research. Obama begins his presidency with the promotion of the culture of death.
The gay parade following the presidential parade, the prayers by the Episcopalian gay bishop, his willingness to engage in 'dialogue' with his avowed enemies and exporters of national death and destruction, are all indicative of national moral weakness and peace at any price.
Obama will with great panache and style, to the gleeful cheers of the liberal left and goggle eyed smiles of the young and the dumb, continually sign away the birthright of the American people, weaken them on the world stage and slowly remove them from it. Look up America! The countdown for your drastic diminishment has started.
The UK is already finished. Frightened Christians are cowering in the corner, clasping their ideas to their own shaking bosom, whilst the state church is STILL arguing about who they can have sex with.
Meanwhile Sky news today reports that in our country which has the highest teenage rate of pregnancy in Europe, 25% of children are seeking abortion advice from teachers and 66% of teachers say that school sex education should have information regarding termintaiton options.
We want to start at Crisis pregnancy centre in Tunbridge Wells for servicing East Sussex and Kent. Can you help us? Will you help us to do this?
I know like everything we do in our nation now it is very much a closing of the door after the horse has bolted and bolted it has. Never the less, I have to be able to stand before my Maker and look myself in the eye in the mirror in a morning and be able to say I did something. I didn't just roll over.
If you can help - if you can't live with yourself - contact me today.
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