Been Sick

Came down with what seemed like a flu bug on the 13th.  It held me in its grip until pretty much Saturday.  Yesterday and today I am just tired.   Longest flu I've ever had, went through all of the 'flu-like' symptoms (I won't go into the gory details, lets just say I had them all).

Hopefully it is done with.  I didn't go get a C-19 test as honestly I cannot see the point.  If it was covid type flu then I'm through it, good.  If it wasn't covid, so what?  You get sick you stay home.  For the life of me I cannot see the fear mongering and push for people to self-test.  What exactly are you accomplishing by 'knowing' (and even that is questionable, as it only shows you have the c-19 strain, not that you 'have' c-19) that your sickness was covid?

Look, I understand with the travel restrictions, you may not be able to fly if you have a positive test.  So, why get the test?  It strikes me as an almost religious zeal to show how righteous you are.  The latest is that you are somehow 'selfish' if you choose not to get the shots, or don't wish to share your personal medical information.  It almost reeks of desperation.

I know, there are many who would disagree with me.  You do you.  You think you should have the latest booster or whatever, do so.  You think you're good, good for you.

Well, it doesn't matter.  If you're sick, stay home. 

Wisdom

The Book of Proverbs is known in many Christian circles as The Book of Wisdom.  Proverbs was written by inspiration of the Lord through King Solomon to his son(s).   A man recording lessons learned for the next generation(s).  If you have read the Old Testament, The 1st Book of Kings Chapter 3 verses 5 through 12, states that God "I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee."

The Holy Bible states that Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived.  Accepting the fact those who believe not may question this, but a slight reminder.  The Israel of ancient times is well supported by the archeological findings.

This section of The Word is followed by one of the most well-known sections, verses 16 through 27, the decision to divide the child between the two women.  The woman were harlots (would have been outcasts in the society outside of their method of providing for themselves).  They both were new mothers and one child had died in the night.  This is followed by the bold statement in Chapter 4 verse 29 "And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore."  I am sure all who read this are aware of his decision to root out who was the mother.  If not, read I Kings 3:16-27;

The first couple of Chapters of Kings cover the early years of Solomon's reign as king of the joint nation of Judah and Israel, he acted on this wisdom.  Even the Queen of Sheba is related as traveling to Jerusalem to seek out this knowledge.

We see in the last Chapter covering his life and kingship (Chapter 11) that he was tripped up by his physical desires / lusts or even just his political decisions (marriage historically is a political decision at this level of international relations).  "But king Solomon loved many strange women", "For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods:"  He turned away from God. 

Rehoboam took over from Solomon as king, first of Judah and Israel, but quickly the nation descended into civil war.  Ending with the separation of Israel under Jeroboam (a son of Nabat, a servant of Solomon) in an alliance with Egypt who "lifted up his hand against the king." 

The wisest man who ever lived.  Left his nation over to a vain young man, with his household in open rebellion.  How can this be?

Well, we can learn from another king, when Saul forgot how little he was, he turned against God, who had given him the kingdom (1st Samuel 15:17) and now gave it to David.  Saul turned away from God, unrepentively, and God turned away from Saul.  Note that David greiviously sinned against God, but was repentive.  The results of his sin(s) did not go away however.

Many principals The Word lays out for us.  That we can chose to follow or ignore.  The words of a book Proverbs, authored by God but the penmanship was of a father to his son, is I believe, one of the most important books in the Bible for us and our interaction with this world.

Proverbs 4:5  Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.  

4:7  Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.  

16:16  How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver!  

17:16  Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?

A wise man, who ignored or forgot the wisdom he had, lured by the delights of this world.  Yet, to his claim is the books that he surrendered to the heavenly Father and penned.

Have a great day, On Purpose!

The Old Cow Man

 I rode across a valley range
I hadn't seen for years.
The trail was all so spoilt and strange
It nearly fetched the tears.
I had to let ten fences down
(The fussy lanes ran wrong)
And each new line would make me frown
And hum a mournin' song.

Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!
Hear 'em stretchin' of the wire!
The nester brand is on the land;
I reckon I'll retire,
While progress toots her brassy horn
And makes her motor buzz,
I thank the Lord I wasn't born
No later than I was. 

'Twas good to live when all the sod,
Without no fence or fuss,
Belonged in partnership to God,
The Gover'ment and us.
With skyline bounds from east to west
And room to go and come,
I loved my fellow man the best
When he was scattered some. 

Oh, it's squeak! squeak! squeak!
Close and closer cramps the wire.
There's hardly any place to back away
And call a man a liar.
Their house has locks on every door;
Their land is in a crate.
These ain't the plains of God no more,
They're only real estate. 

There's land where yet no ditchers dig
Nor cranks experiment;
It's only lovely, free and big
And isn't worth a cent.
I pray that them who come to spoil
May wait till I am dead
Before they foul that blessed soil
With fence and cabbage head. 

Yet it's squeak! squeak! squeak!
Far and farther crawls the wire.
To crowd and pinch another inch
Is all their heart's desire.
The word is overstocked with men
And some will see the day
When each must keep his little pen,
But I'll be far away. 

When my old soul hunts range and rest
Beyond the last divide,
Just plant me in some stretch of West
That's sunny, lone and wide.
Let cattle rub my tombstone down
And coyotes mourn their kin,
Let hawses paw and tromp the moun'
But don't you fence it in! 

Oh it's squeak! squeak! squeak!
And they pen the land with wire.
They figure fence and copper cents
Where we laughed 'round the fire.
Job cussed his birthday, night and morn,
In his old land of Uz,
But I'm just glad I wasn't born
no later than I was!

Badger Clark Jr.

B-A-P-T-I-S-T-S

 Over the years (I have been saved over two decades) I have seen several different versions of this acrostic (I think that is correct word).

I have seen one or two versions that I believe are bordering on hearsay or unbiblical.  There are others, that though they don't line up completely with this version, I think just have the emphasis at different points.

It is a simple way to decide or demonstrate where you stand.  It uses Baptist as its word, but the meaning is Christian.

I prefer this version best, as I believe it is in order, from higher to lessor (though not of any less importance in the Christian walk).

B - Biblical Authority: our final authority in deciding any matter is the Holy Bible (in the English language preserved through the Authorized Version, sometimes known as the King James).

A - Autonomy of the Local Church: each Church family is solely a self authorizing organization accountable to Jesus Christ alone.  No bishops, popes, conventions have the right to dictate to a local body of believers.  This does not exclude alliances for Christian works, missions etc, but these must be monitored Biblically to ensure the Church is not drawn into an unholy relationship.

P - Priesthood of Believers: every Christian is a priest, free to approach God directly through the work of the Chief Priest Jesus Christ.  There is no need to go through any man/woman to approach God.  No popes, no confessionals staffed by a man.

T - Two Church Offices: the local body of believers is governed by two offices only.  Pastors and Deacons.  Pastors are chosen by God and accepted by the Church family, to act as shepherds following the Over Shepherd Jesus Christ ("follow me as I follow Christ").  Deacons are chosen from within the Church family to act a servants to the body ("it is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables").  Note: this does not stop a Church body from appointing staff (secretaries, administrative etc) but those are not scripturally outlined and at no time supersede the biblical positions.  All Church staff should follow as applicable the pastoral epistles in regards to Church leadership (i.e. no divorcees in Sunday school class teachers or Trusties governing buildings etc).

I - Individual Soul Liberty: each believer is solely accountable to Jesus Christ for how their understand and live out the Christian life.  No one can claim at the Bema Seat Judgement that they were following direction of some man/woman/order.  Every Christian needs to search the Scriptures to see if it is so.  To challenge the spirits.  This does not preclude seeking Biblical advice, yet the individual is responsible for their steps.

S - Saved, baptized Church membership: to be a member of a local body of believers, you must be saved.  The first step of obedience to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is baptism by immersion.  A believer cannot be a legitimate member of a Church unless baptized (though this would not effect their salvation), and a person to whom someone has 'baptized' (infant baptism or such like) but who does not have a personal belief nor been saved by their knowledge of Jesus Christ cannot be a legitimate member of a Church of believers.

T - Two Church Ordinances: the local Church is commanded by Jesus Christ to be baptized by immersion after belief.  Also, for the body of believers is the Lords Supper to be a remembrance of what has been done.

S - Separation of Church and State: the government has no say in how a Church body of believers administrates or seeks out their worship, part and parcel, no Church body dictates to a government how they are to govern.  No State Churches.  Government stops before the pulpit.

Each one of these could fill reams of paper going into the fine details with the supporting Biblical references.  Many folks died so that these principals could be passed down to us.  

I hope this was of some use.  Have a great day!  Serve God.

Puffed up and hungry

 It has been very cold.  I have tried to keep my feeders full. 

Happy New Year

 Day late and a dollar short.  Got busy.  House is quiet again.  Was a blessing of a holiday period.  Was able to follow the rules and gather together as a family.  Truly blessed.

Deciding Questionable Things (tests)

 I wrote this down in a book cover twenty or so years back, when I was a newly born again Christian.  A series of tests that you can use to make important (and simple) decisions.  Don't remember for sure where I found it, or who taught it.  Still find it quite reasonable and reliable.

1. Proclamation: does the Bible express-idly forbid it?   Is there a clear command to not do so, to avoid, to shun, to remove yourself from that situation?
   
2. Principal: does the Bible forbid it in principal?  Are there similar things that should be avoided or not done, though not necessarily mentioned in the exact?
3. Partnership: could I invite Jesus Christ to participate with me?  Nothing I can add...
4. Presence: would I want to be found doing it with the Lord Jesus Christ returns and we are raptured?  Kinda like the preacher who avoids his ministry one Sunday AM to run a round of golf and gets a Hole-in-One on the hardest fairway....
5. Purity: does it bring glory to God the Father?  Again, nothing I can add...
   
6. Peace: is there any doubt in my mind about it?  If it's doubtful, Don't. Do. It.
7. Profession: will it hurt my testimony?  Many things I am allowed to do, much like Paul discussing the meat from the shambles, but they could hurt my testimony among weaker Christians or worse, cause them to fall into sin.

A quite day after the storm has passed...  LOL.  We had a couple of days of gatherings.  Much smaller than we hoped (restrictions, a way of life for now), far better than last year.  

Pages 395 – 402

 

Chronicles of Geneva by François Bonivard.

“When the bubonic plague struck Geneva in 1530, everything was ready. They even opened a whole hospital for the plague victims. With doctors, paramedics and nurses. The traders contributed, the magistrate gave grants every month. The patients always gave money, and if one of them died alone, all the goods went to the hospital.
But then a disaster happened: the plague was dying out, while the subsidies depended on the number of patients.
There was no question of right and wrong for the Geneva hospital staff in 1530. If the plague produces money, then the plague is good. And then the doctors got organized.
At first, they just poisoned patients to raise the mortality statistics, but they quickly realized that the statistics didn’t have to be just about mortality, but about mortality from plague.
So they began to cut the boils from the bodies of the dead, dry them, grind them in a mortar and give them to other patients as medicine. Then they started dusting clothes, handkerchiefs and garters. But somehow the plague continued to abate. Apparently, the dried buboes didn’t work well.
Doctors went into town and spread bubonic powder on door handles at night, selecting those homes where they could then profit. As an eyewitness wrote of these events, “this remained hidden for some time, but the devil is more concerned with increasing the number of sins than with hiding them.”
In short, one of the doctors became so impudent and lazy that he decided not to wander the city at night, but simply threw a bundle of dust into the crowd during the day. The stench rose to the sky and one of the girls, who by a lucky chance had recently come out of that hospital, discovered what that smell was.
The doctor was tied up and placed in the good hands of competent “craftsmen.” They tried to get as much information from him as possible.
However, the execution lasted several days. The ingenious hippocrats were tied to poles on wagons and carried around the city. At each intersection the executioners used red-hot tongs to tear off pieces of meat. They were then taken to the public square, beheaded and quartered, and the pieces were taken to all the districts of Geneva. The only exception was the hospital director’s son, who did not take part in the trial but blurted out that he knew how to make potions and how to prepare the powder without fear of contamination. He was simply beheaded “to prevent the spread of evil”.

Merry Christmas

 

https://stream.org/how-god-used-roads-to-pave-the-way-for-jesus/

"As the Roman Empire grew militarily, so did its need for roads. As a result, Roman roads were widespread and usually well paved. Wherever they conquered, the Romans built long, relatively straight roads to make the movement of military equipment easier. This desire to avoid curves necessitated the advanced engineering of bridges, tunnels, and viaducts to traverse mountains and valleys. Roman roads were well built and often populated by the military, making them much safer to travel than their Greek counterparts. Spanning nearly 250,000 miles, these roads became a symbol of Rome’s power, connecting diverse subcultures within the empire."

Not to get too long, just a short synopsis.  The article states that the Messiah came at the perfect time I concur.  But not just because of the roads.  The values of freedom of movement for a Roman citizen were still acknowledged due to the resulting peace of the beginning of the Empire and end of the civil wars from the last of the Republican battles for supremacy.  The confluence of events allowed an opportunity.  Once under the control of the Roman republic and later Empire, a person could live quite freely, under strict Roman Law of course.  But areas sought acceptance as parts of the republic, citizenship was a treasure that was highly valued and even paid for.   

A citizen and entourage could travel freely, even non-citizens could travel if not criminal element.  Trade flourished.  

This allowed a young man and his wife, to travel with her young child from the modern region of Israel to Egypt to avoid the predations of a power-hungry Judean king, also for the Apostles (Roman citizen Paul and maybe Barnabas, but also the Jewish fishermen) to travel freely not only within Roman borders but into areas outside the Empire.  Still under the protection of Roman Law and influence.  This due to the value of Roman Citizenship and the iron Roman Law created a unique (up until recent times) era of freedom of movement. 

This era ended first with the start of Emperor worship that destroyed the Jewish state structure that existed within the Roman Empire (Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians) with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.  In this window the Temple still existed, allowing for the Jewish lineage to be established, which was and is a requirement to establish who the Messiah was and is.  And not very much later, the resumption of civil wars and break down of Roman Law disrupted and eventually stopped free travel and trade.  Eventually this resulted in the dark ages and times of heresy and man-made religious structures and spiritual imprisonment.

A window of opportunity.  The Messiah could be born, safely grow into a man.  Conduct His ministry and later, His disciples could spread the Word throughout the civilized world getting it established.

It is a long discussion whether or not The Son of God was born on a cold winter morning in Bethlehem.  Well; He was born, but what date?  Well, the flocks were in the fields, the Judean king was in his winter palace in Jerusalem. Exactly when?  Not for us to know.

We can pinpoint when the Resurrection happened because it is linked with the Passover, which is a date that can be determined and is established on the Judean calendar.  The exact birthdate and even the exact location of the death of the Messiah however is left in the air.

Probably because the Lord knew that as men, we would begin to worship the site and date, instead of the Saviour.

So when is Christmas day?  The birthday of the Saviour?  Well, my first Pastor years back even before I put my trust and faith in Jesus Christ, when I asked (due to my Roman Catholic youth and education) why we were not meeting on ‘Christmas Day’.  Answered “everyday is Christmas day”.

We should celebrate every day that we are alive, that our Lord recognized our sinful fallen state, and sent a Saviour, who later died on a cross, a poor man, who owned nothing in this world but the cloak on His back.  And yet, The Son of God.  A perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Sent: at the perfect fulness of time.

Praise the Lord.  Merry Christmas.

Humour

Song of Solomon 2:11-12 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

I post this one this morning to share a smile, as every time I read it, the two verses together bring a smile to my face.

When we first moved south, we would spend quite a bit of the summer at my sister's lake property. In that part of NW Ontario there is an abundance of snapping turtles . Some quite large (Alicia and I captured one once that was at least 13" in diameter. Weighted somewhere around twenty pounds, and bite through the aluminum bar of the fish net I used to scoop him up with like it was butter...).

One day Alicia saw this verse posted on the highway.

Great hilarity ensued (Yep. I'm getting old....lol).

Love the winter, but looking forward to the flowers and birds. No snapping turtles here to my knowledge.

Have a great day.

 

Grace

 I saw this on a website I visit regularly this morning, and of course, with my infantryman's sense of humour I immediately posted it to FB with a trigger warning for those without a dark sense of what can cause one to laugh.

Of course there is more to this comic than meets the eye.  You see, just a easy walk down societal road.  Our Western Civilization started, no matter what anyone says, on the basis of Christianity.  The ability to make an agreement, that was based on a common understanding, that someone would keep their word.

Yes, that is the basis of civilization (why do you think Communist China is so corrupt? - don't take my word for it, Google China Defective Products and come back - see you in an hour...LOL).  Everyone plays on the same sheet of music (to some degree, there will always be different flavors of the juice).  The Roman Church held all the reins of power for centuries, until the corruption became too obvious and the reformation started (just look at why Martin Luther rebelled - indulgences will give you a starting track).

Western Civilization came out of the belief, that there is a God, who holds men accountable.  Those who do bad will be punished, if not in this world, the next.  Of course, a just God will be and hold men to good.  And of course if there is good, then there must be evil.

Recently watched the movie from a couple decades back (am I that old?) Santa Claus 2.  Of course it has its plot and is quite funny.  They put a robot santa in charge while the real Santa (Tim Allen) goes to find himself a wife.  The robot santa reads the rule book.  Well, if you've watched it you know the story, and if you haven't you can probably figure it out if I told you the temporary santa wants to give all of the children coal.

So then, are there any good people?  If and when you read the Bible (God's handbook for this life to mankind) you quickly see that all have fallen short.  None of us are with out sin (doing something bad).  So a 'just' God has to punish the sin or He is not a just God, just another charlatan.

A dilemma...

 All people fall short of the glory of God.

What is the answer?

Well, in times past, before creation, God the Father sat down (did they have spiritual chairs? who knows?) with God the Son and set out a plan.  The mankind that They/He (The Trinity, almost impossible for a man to understand) would create, would fall, as would a sizable cadre of the heavenly angels.

There was a place built for those fallen angels (and a future place - the lake of fire - for them in eternity), but that place was not built for man.

God had a plan.  A simple plan.

He would send His Son, His only begotten Son to earth, to live as a man, to be tempted at all points as a man and yet to never sin.  To suffer indignities and pain as a man, to be accused of things He never did and to die innocent, carrying to the cross, all of the sins of man.  Every sin, from beginning to the end.

Jesus died for them, in our place.

So, Santa ignores our sin, the kids get coal, but nothing really is done.  God does not ignore our sin.  Punishment has been carried out.  Paid in full.

All you have to do is accept that gift, the gift of God to mankind.  Forgiveness of sin, acceptance into the family.

God's grace.