Let’s Get This Settled!

10/5/2019

Placing the em pha’ sis on the wrong syl la’ ble causes much confusion, much delusion, much mistrust and many mistakes in just about every area of living, of community and in societal habitation. I’m talking about removing the main thing and placing the kind of emphasis on lesser things while believing in change for change’s sake. Question is, can I now tell you what I mean? Maybe. Maybe not.  

Let’s start with the political scene thrust before us every day of our lives: What’s wrong with this picture? (Easy answer is, everything.) Hmm, let’s not bother with this, it would take waaaay too long and could not possibly solve anything! Have you been watching?

So, the opening statement problem: let’s talk about religion, when we get that one straightened out, it’ll be a much more stress—free life. All will be peaceful and calm. We’re going to need the Lord’s intervention on this one. The way I see Him? or the way others see Him? The way the Catholics call upon him, or the way the snake-handlers call upon him? Hmm, this could take the rest of our lives and not get it figured out. Ever looked at the number of wars fought over this? Maybe we ought not bother with this one!

Let’s just take the emphasis off of anything that causes trouble, that way we can be like Ogden Nash suggested:

See the happy moron, he doesn’t give a damn

I wish I were a moron: My god, perhaps I am!

All the above fits a big portion of our world, does it not? As a society, we worry about our little clique and very little else. We’re more concerned with how we might be entertained than we are with the important things of life. We spend more time and money on sports and entertainment than our grandparents could ever have imagined. Even inside of these larger issues we circle the wagons, closing out those people or things we don’t like, huddling up with our “chosen few” and only allowing in the ones who conform to us. But, the reality shows that we are all just alike. 

Whether we are in the Western world, Europe, Africa, Asia, or in what’s called the Middle East, before the Lord of the Universe, we are all just alike. Members of Adam’s race. Young or old, rich or poor, smart or not so smart, Jew, Gentile, man, woman, black, white, brown, or some shade not yet procreated, we’re all the same. Why is it, segment by segment, most of us never agree with what I just wrote, except when we see it written like this or hear it in public and don’t want to embarrass ourselves by disagreeing? 

So, now: does the “cute little story” of Eve tempting Adam with an apple seem so little and cute? No, it was as the Lord depicted it in John 8, when he referred to the devil as “a liar, and the father of IT!” You see, there is only one lie and the serpent in the garden is the same dude who said, “I will exalt myself above the Most High.” The same one whom the Apostle Paul described as “transformed into an angel of light.” This enemy is so formidable that he has made a world full of people think they are all “children of God” when what we’ve become as a people are the pitiful product of the first sentence in this blog: always placing the em “pha” sis on the wrong syl “la” ble.

We can become wiser than we are toward the common menace, but first we have to admit he’s real and here, though we have no eyes that see him. His influence on the people of the world never stops, and he is a chameleon. His three main thrusts which we can only answer by the word of the Lord are these: he never sleeps, he does not care who he hurts, and he’s smarter than us.

So we need the word of the Lord to overcome what the adversary invokes upon us, making us religious about all the wrong things. Impress upon us to spend our resources on the wrong things, making us think we’re doing it all right, when all the time he’s laughing up his sleeve about it all, believing he is going to win in the end.

Sorry if this seems like such a downer. As always, Christ is the answer.

On the road today, going to North Carolina to be with the folks at Charity Bible Church tomorrow. Please pray for the other folks on the road..some of them are crazy drivers!

Thanks for reading, the Elder