Peace and grace to each of you in Jesus name!
I know some are wondering why my last article was over three weeks ago. THAT, my friends is the life of an active pastor! Among those of the same professional stripe as myself, the joke is " No matter the economy, we will always have job security"! Frequently no money, but certainly we will never be lacking for something to do.
On the other hand, along with job security (and lot's of experience), comes the absolute knowledge that money really means nothing. It is merely a means to the end. The "end" of course is simply living out our lives for the Lord to the best of our limited abilities, knowing without doubt that the Lord will care for our needs. And He always does!
When I was a young pastor, a much older and wiser man of God told me this: "The Lord has missed a number of golden opportunities to be early (in His provision for us), but He has never been late"! Frankly I have found that to be true. But this article is not about a faith walk. Rather it is about trying to decide just how much trouble the world is in and what we as believers should be doing about it?
Before I launch into a subject that could not possible be covered in one single article, I would like to thank new readers in the nations of Jamaica, Bulgaria, Albania and Algeria. That brings us up to the point in which this humble correspondent is speaking (through this blog) to folks in 58 countries of the world. To one and all who are telling their friends and relatives about my written thoughts and opinions, I thank you most sincerely.
I have GREAT news! My wife Brandy and I have traveled many countries of the world. We have spoken the gospel in a wide variety of settings. We have been blessed by the Lord to minister in just about every way that any Pastor can do during his or her career. Sounds good huh?
The problem is that neither of us are very "computer savvy". She much more so than I but at our stages of ministry life, this has become a tremendous problem. In terms of our understanding what our iMac's are capable of, Brandy is about a 35 percenter. I on the other hand, have come to the conclusion that my "lightening swift mind" is either completely full or simply not capable of doing more than turning the thing on and mumbling about how stupid this one eyed contraption is!!! Am I the only one?
You know, while not being overly anxious to divulge our true ages, I will give you a hint! When I was born, there were no computers in the entire world. In fact I remember using the "victrola" in our living room, playing with marbles and the day my dad brought home our very first ROUND screen black and white TV. At 10 o'clock every night (or maybe it was 9 ?), a "test signal screen" came on the tele and then all the channels just simply went off until the following day. Brandy played with dolls! Only "Flash Gordon" had a device without a long wire connected to the wall, for the purposes of communications.
We lived in a much simpler world! All the good guys wore white hats and the rascals wore black ones. The good guy got the good girl and then there was a wedding----OR ELSE! Oh, there were wars alright but at least we really knew who the enemies were. Men (by and large) stayed married, raised their kids in church, opened the door for their honored wives and took care of their Grandparents. Women, dressed in attractive yet modest ways and virginity was a virtue. Motherhood was still an honored profession, a school bully got his butt kicked and the teachers snickered about it. No one and I mean NO ONE, beat up a horse or killed a puppy. PERIOD!
During my high school years, the mere THOUGHT of having sex with your girl friend would get your face slapped. Even in those few delicate moments at the drive in theater, physical intimacy was merely the "stuff of young men's dreams" because girdles were simply undefeatable! And pregnancy out of wedlock? We are talking about the ultimate social disgrace here!
A "wild time on the old town tonight" was a bunch of teenage guys piled into someones hotrod, endlessly dragging main street. Circling the A & W root beer stand, flirting and whistling at the girls who completely ignored them (But THEY knew of course that the girls were REALLY secretly in love with them). Finally ending the evening by mutually bragging about all of their conquests!-------knowing beyond doubt that all the other guys were lying through their teeth.
Ah, for the good ole days! And you know what? Terrorism was only practiced by GODZILLA as he crushed Tokyo. If there was a real problem, we had Superman, Batman and in a real pinch, the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile to protect truth justice and the America way. Or what ever way in the world was being threatened by that nasty old arch enemy "DARTHVADER"! Heh, Heh, Heh!!!~
You know we actually had the nerve to believe that our Senators and Congressmen (women) were always honest people who sincerely wanted to represent us in Godly ways. NO ONE ever believed in those days that to be a Christian would be considered HATEFUL??? Why would anyone want to burn a flag? Why would anyone object to the Ten Commandments, a nativity scene or having "In God We Trust" on a dollar bill?
And the church? Well in most towns in those days the church was still the center of family social activity. Families ate dinner together every night and Friday night high school football was a family affair. Mothers cried as fathers walked their daughters down the aisle and most women dreamed of having at least 6 grand children to dote on them in their old age.
Oh yes their were Proverbs 31:10-31 women and they were extremely honored in the process. Many owned respectable businesses but always put their families first. They did not have to expose themselves, get tattoo'd or burn their bras to get attention. Men were still respected for the honor of shaking their hands to make agreements. By and large, four letter words were not part of their daily vocabulary and NEVER in front of a lady.
Let's see now, about how long ago was that simple, family oriented world? Oh yes I remember, ONLY ABOUT 60 YEARS AGO! Maybe a bit longer outside the big cities but certainly within my life time.
What happened?
How did we get into this mess in such a short time? Oh, I could explain all about the consequences of an entire society beginning to deny God. But then I think that most folks reading my blog probably already understand that simple concept.
So now that we have evolved as a society into one in which there seem to be absolutely no social graces and zero rules of personal conduct----are we better off? Really?
You say, "well that's all fine and good Rance, but there is absolutely nothing we can do about it"! While it is true that time cannot be turned back, I believe that there ARE things we can do about it. We can begin having family meals everyday again---surely, can't we? We can DECIDE to work harder at our marital issues rather than participate in the revolving door of divorce--remarriage---divorce---remarriage---!!!
We can set limits for our children. We can decide not to watch that "R" rated movie. We can decide to recommit our lives to the Lord and ALSO TO GET BACK IN FELLOWSHIP. We can go back to church. We can say no to filthy public school curriculum. We can send our kids to Christian schools. We can elect believing men and women to represent us. We Do not have to get tattoos and use vulgar speech. We don't have to watch our 13 year old daughters loosing their virginity and carrying STD's for the rest of their lives.
We can exert the pressure of roughly 2 BILLION Christian voices worldwide that say, "get back to the basics or you will NEVER hold public office again"! We can build the boarder fence and reform immigration so can truly honor our neighbors. We can stop excessive Government spending and tell the drug cartels of every country that we will vote for people that will put you out of business and in prison where you belong.
WE can DECIDE that it only takes ONE committed person to start that process. And then we can scream it from the housetops.
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Well Ok so I digressed a little. Just had to get that off my mind. I was going to tell you the really good news. The Lord has answered our prayers and we now have a young man on our staff who is extremely astute with computers. WELCOME Brandon Beckwith. He and His wife Charity are now working with us several days each week. Charity will be assisting Brandy and the other ministry ladies with an entire plethora of new projects.
Brandon is not like anybody I remember from my marble-playing generation. No indeedy! This young man was actually born as a Siamese twin. Really, he was. It took several doctors hours and hours of painstaking advanced surgical skills to separate Brandon from his biological twin. They were joined at the brain and his twin's name was MACINTOSH. His nick name is APPLE and he has multiple mega bites for buttons. Brandon loves to sit in front of his monitor and read computer speak consisting of thousands of random (at least it seems so to me) numerical "thingamajiggies", that apparently tell my computer how to say "welcome friends and readers"!
I on the other hand have a clock in my house that someone (apparently like myself) invented upon which ALL the clock's numbers have fallen into a random pile at the bottom of the face and across the top it says "WHATEVER"!
Brandon and I could not be from further technological planets. I understand an 18 once framing hammer. Brandon's eyes twinkle when he sees his computer. He even likes to be called a "geek". Of course we have had to alter that somewhat to fit the language of the third world country we live in. So here it is folks, A drum role please---The official welcome for our new ministry Web Master, Brandon ("El Gecko Techo") Beckwith. Ta, Da!
Now why is that so important to to us? Well for starters I want to expand this blog plus add another one (purpose to be announced) and begin producing YouTube presentations. Brandon can do all that stuff (I know I am probably not grammatically correct here---please don't throw me in a pit and stone me). His wife Charity is an absolute whiz at photography and then we have Angela Guenter who understands far more than simply turning on the video equipment.
Zooming right along we have Renee Coady as office assistant and several others that I will introduce in later articles who work on various other functions within the ministry which is now active in The United States, Canada, Mexico, Liberia West Africa and has lots of neat things going in relation to Israel and the Middle East.
I began by telling you how busy we are in general ministry. You know it is hard to break old habits and even harder to say no to folks who ask you to do really good things. Everywhere we look (I am sure it is the same for you) there are really good projects and ways for us to spend our limited ministry time on this earth. However I have found that although all these are good things to do, they may not be what I (or you) am specifically called by the Lord to accomplish.
When we try to do everything for everybody, NOTHING gets done well. Brandy and I would like to be able to report that we have this particular lesson "whipped" once and for all. Unfortunately, ain't so! But we are taking a long look at the way we spend our ministry time and making some adjustments accordingly. Naturally we are always here for folks in an emergency but I don't want to have to keep explaining to the followers of this blog, why I am three weeks late in my publishing schedule.
There are some things I want to talk about. I want to understand and explain why nearly 15 Nations of the Middle East are in simultaneous meltdown. I want to tell you why FORCING or even encouraging these Muslim nations to become "DEMOCRATIC" forms of government is simply foolishness in the inth degree. Why this kind of thought is utter folly and will end in many of these nations being ruled by even worse forms of theocratic dictatorships.
Why do most Muslim nations hate Israel? Why do ever increasing numbers of our worlds population call for the destruction of Israel? Why is the United States and other western nations falling in step with this self destructive form of thinking? What does GOD have to say about all this? Oh, buddy, I am not sure you want to know! Many of our cultures and nations are being led directly down the old "primrose path" to destruction by leaders with nothing more on their minds than personal fame and political ambition.
Why is the world economy headed very quickly toward a currency armageddon?
How long can the United States continue as THE major world power while our leaders argue over political agendas and hurl insults at each other while the nation quickly sinks into the abyss of financial oblivion?
Why is Christianity worldwide now the fastest growing religion and yet suffers ANNUALLY, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 martyrs for their faith?
Are the signs of the times rapidly developing to the point that we can now see on the horizon, the paths of the approaching 4 horses of the apocalypse? Are they being prepared in the heavenly's for their (perhaps) soon coming release upon this earth? Are their saddles ready and someone fitting these terrible steeds with wickedly spiked horse shoes?
And what is the churches responsibility toward Israel during this most dire time of world catastrophe? Have some professing, well meaning Christians been duped by pastors who have taught them denominational heresy regarding Israel and the end times------RATHER than what God says in His Holy Word?
These are the issue that I want to discuss and many more. I want to reach just as many people on this planet as I can and remind them that ALL the answers can be found in the Bible.
I want to scream to the roof tops. FORGET political correctness while you still can! There is only one game in town for all of us. It is the way that God decreed. Call me a hateful Christian bigot if you like. That however will not change the truth. Those truths include the fact that Israel belongs to God and those that touch her are in big big trouble.
The God of the Bible is firm on the fact that He ordained a traditional family structure which includes one man and one woman. Raising their children according to His Holy Word.
What the world decrees to be hateful speech, in reality is an all loving God, Himself screaming to the world that there are terrible eternal consequences for living a sinful life.
But there is an answer and His Name is Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of a merciful heavenly Father who wants all mankind to spend eternity with Him. However, like it or not, that eternal salvation begins with repentance for sin.
And can we actually dare to believe that GOD, who creates and gives life, would possible approve of the genocide of over 50 million babies in the United States alone? And the numbers worldwide are very much higher than that.
It is time to get back to the basics my friends. The heck with political correctness. None of us will be able to explain our political correctness on the day we bow our knee before King Jesus!
So please allow me to remind everyone reading this article: 2 Timothy 3:16 : "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work"!
Next week I am going to introduce you to our next teaching tour to Israel. We do not do these tours as a business. They are intended for people who want to walk the paths of the Holy land and experience right now, the place where they will spend eternity.
In the meantime, may the Lord of Glory continue to bless you richly in every spiritual way.
God bless,
Pastor Rance, Grrrrr!~
