Will You Keep Supporting a Maniac Right to the Brink?

Read article here.

This guy is capable of anything.  Anything!  There are no boundaries he will not cross.  There are no self-imposed limitations he will stick to.  There are no standards of behavior he feels bound by.  There is no limit to the number and class of people he will use, misuse and abuse to get what he wants.

If he has been accused (by Democrats or Congress or others) of something he did not actually do, it is only because he never thought of doing it, or did not find a way to make it work to his ends.

A man that has the full weight and power of the United States at his disposal, and is willing to misuse it simply to try to save face or recover from embarrassment is a man that is capable of any crime.

That's not even the worst part.  That's not even the saddest part.  That's not even the heartbreaking part.

The worst part is that the vast majority of people who should be speaking up the loudest against this are going to continue to keep silent, or even support it.  They are going to rationalize for "the greater good" or some such.  But the real reason they are going to continue to support Trump's deeds and even vote for him again is this:  They want to save face and avoid embarrassment as much as he does.  They made their decision and they won't admit they were wrong.  Just like him!

Too many voters bought non-refundable tickets on the Trump train well before they ever considered the long-term effects of taking such a ride.  So now they are going to stay on the train regardless of whether they like the scenery out the window right now.  Is there a bridge out up ahead?  Is a fiery crash in the works?  Do the train tracks even lead where you were promised to end up?

Check the map here.  We're not headed where you thought.  And the continuing silence or even tacit approval of Trump supporters only makes him more bold; only makes him more committed to the direction he's headed.

The train is picking up even more speed.  How far are you willing to ride it?

VM

What Is a Church Ministry For?

While reflecting upon numerous personal conversations, church meetings, men's meetings, ministry meetings, pastors' meetings and the like, I believe I am finally able to put into words something which has been in my heart for years about the nature and purpose of church ministries.  This concept of ministry philosophy was instilled in me by my former pastor, whom God used very greatly to shape my understanding of the function of the church.  It was reiterated to my heart through the experience of my own pastoral ministry.  And it has been nurtured and sustained by the large ministry-heart of my current pastor.  I am talking about the fundamental function, or reason for existence of any ministry the church engages in for its members: ultimately, to "bear one another's burdens" (Galatians 6:2).

I think we can all see, in a general sense, that ministries provided for church members are burden-bearing by their nature.  But what I've been reflecting on is the practical side of it, not just the general sense of it.  Specifically, I've been wrestling with how to answer various objections, such as "Why have this ministry or that ministry?"  A church having a Christian day school comes to mind as a perfect example, but we could name any number of example ministries.  I need to pick an example that we can put into practicalities, so I will use that one.

Here is a question: "Why might a church that endorses home-schooling as the ideal have a Christian day school for families who don't home-school?"  It is an excellent question, with a lot of thought behind it.  And it seems like a paradox or enigma.  We could extend the same question to any number of other ministries: "Why might a church that recommends families being together in church services as the ideal offer children's ministries?"  We could ask a lot of questions about a lot of ministries along these same lines.  "If this is the ideal, why do we do that?"  But the answer would be the same.

Here is why: Because we don't minister in the "ideal" situation.  In fact, if we were in the ideal situation, there would be NO NEED for any ministry!

We do not structure church ministries around where Christians ought to be!  Get that!  It is vitally important!  If you want to understand anything about church ministries, read that sentence three times again, out loud if necessary.  If Christians were where they ought to be spiritually, there would be no need for any ministry!  There would be no need for preaching, teaching, exhorting or anything else a church does!

Rather, we structure church ministries around where Christians ARE.  It is ministry where the rubber meets the road.  We certainly want to help them move along closer to where they ought to be (and ourselves as well).  But we cannot hold up the spiritual ideal, in any area, and say, "If you're not here, we won't minister to you in that area!"  That is not burden-bearing, it is refusing the burden.

Now let me try to put it in a practical, concrete-example sense.  I have been a committed home-schooling father for two decades.  I believe every Christian parent, at least in America (and probably most elsewhere), should home-school in this day and age.  I believe every parent is capable of making it work if they will commit, do the hard work, make the sacrifices, seek help when needed (Hello, grandparents!  Hello church family!), and stick to it.  I believe every problem or objection encountered by home-schooling parents can be worked around, whether logistical, financial, or otherwise.  It can be done!

But I also have to be practical, in the real world, not the world of ideals.  Whether or not every parent should, or can home-school is not the question.  Whether or not they even share my opinion, conviction or preference about it is not the question.  The fact of the matter is, not every parent will, not every parent is willing, and not every parent is convinced like I am.  And yet they don't want their children in public school.  And neither does the church.  Providing a Christian day school is a part of bearing their burdens.  And we are commanded to bear their burdens too, by the way, not just the burdens of those who hold to our preferences.

No, it is not ideal.  But it is also not unbiblical.  You can say home-schooling is the ideal (and I believe it is), but you can't point to the Bible and say home-schooling is the only way.  If you say that, you are convicting most Christians for hundreds of years, up until home-schooling became vogue rather recently.  You are claiming to live by new revelation that our forefathers lacked.  Christians who have chosen to home-school have not done so on biblical grounds, but on practical grounds - largely out of preference over the godless public schools in America today.  A church-run school solves the exact same problem, without violating any scriptural principles (regardless of whether it violates anybody's preferences, or ideas of ideal).

I use this example because it is possibly the easiest to put in concrete terms, but any church ministry can be evaluated in the same terms.  It is designed to bear one another's burdens.  It is designed to "support the weak" (Acts 20:35; I Thessalonians 5:14).  It may even be designed to "comfort the feebleminded" (I Thessalonians 5:14 again).  It is not designed for the person who already has it all together in that area of their life.  Where would be the opportunity to minister there?

The types of questions or objections, raised above, to certain ministries are not such a paradox or enigma after you think rightly about ministry as a burden-bearing, weak-supporting endeavor.  Yes, a church that preaches abstinence from alcohol can still minister to drunkards!  Yes, a church that stands against divorce and remarriage can still help a remarried couple have a great marriage!  Yes, a church that opposes sin can still help sinners!  That thought should be kind of a "Duh!" moment.  It's not an oxymoron, it's reality.  When every church member reaches the spiritual ideal that the church targets, it's time to close the church!

We do not minister in the ideal, because the ideal requires no ministry.  Unfortunately, some Christians seem like they only want the church to minister to those who really would need no ministry!  That is the real paradox or enigma.

That oxymoron is worse than the old financial dilemma: "You can only be approved for a bank loan if you can show you have enough money to not need the loan."  Well, I don't want a church that's ran like a bank!  I don't want to be involved in ministries approved with a loan-officer's checklist, "Prove that you're worthy of our help."  Rather, I want to sweat, give, labor and spend myself (II Corinthians 12:15) in real ministry, to real people in the real world who really need it.  Like somebody did for me!

VM

06-15-2019

Johnny Cash Family Fumes At "Outrageous" Trump Claims

WASHINGTON (04/04/2019) - The family of late music entertainer and eminent climate scientist Johnny Cash went to Twitter this week to express dismay with recent claims made by President Donald Trump.  "We are outraged," noted Johnny's son Spendin Cash.

The feud was kicked off when the United States President spoke at a recent rally of farmers in the northeast of the midwest.  Responding in Ohio Tuesday to questions about the federal government's response to global warming, President Trump assured farmers that keeping crops viable was well within his super powers.  "After all," he quipped, "I taught the weeping willow how to cry... cry... cry."  Mr. Trump did not elaborate on how that claim, if true, could assist crops.  Trump went on to say that global warming was not much of a concern because, if necessary, he'd "tell the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky" in order to keep temperatures down.

The identical twin sister of Mr. Cash, Johnita, said she felt like the President was taking a swipe at her deceased brother.  "Johnny did all those amazing things, and Donald Trump ignores that and acts like this ability of his is something new.  It's not new!  My brother could do these things forty, fifty years ago.  Granted, Johnny used science to accomplish this, and the President is using his super powers, but in the end it is the same result."  Johnita said she would like to remind everyone that her brother won multiple Nobel Prizes in scientific fields, in addition to his many Grammy awards.  "Most people only remember the music," she added.  "But our family feels that Johnny's real accomplishments were scientific, especially in controlling the weather, trees and river patterns."

In discussing river patterns, Mr. Trump also took a swipe at the Democrat-controlled congress at the rally.  He said that if they do not approve the funds for his proposed border wall, he would protect at least the eastern half of the country from the "illegal alien surge" by flooding the Mississippi River as a barrier to immigration.  He said he could accomplish this by using "the tears I shed for that woman."  It was not clear at press time who "that woman" referred to, or where the tears have been stored in the meantime.  Many believe "that woman" could be the President's first wife, Ivana.  Others think "that woman" refers to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who has accused the President of watching "Shark Week" with her in a hotel room in 2007 and then paying her off with campaign cash to keep quiet about his being terrified of sharks.

Allusions to "that woman" have long been a part of presidential parlance, according to Stu Pidhead with the Presidential Parlance Partnership, a Washington think-tank.  "This goes back to Bill Clinton," he said.  "The famous 'that woman' line at his press conference, where he denied ever being intimate with - 'that woman' - pointing, but leaving out her name.  Most people think he was pointing at Hillary."  Other presidents have used the term with less ambiguity, said Stu.  "Whenever George W. Bush said 'that woman,' everybody knew he was talking about his lovely sainted mother Barbara, the salt of the earth.  God bless that woman!"  Still, there is room for doubt about the way President Obama used the phrase, even when clearly meaning his wife.  "Every time Obama said 'that woman' publicly, his brother would later tweet out, 'Michelle?  Or is it really MICHAEL?'  This really disturbed the President, but emboldened the LGBTQ-RSTUV crowd to think about the possibilities."

Remarking on President Trump's claims, Johnny Cash's mother stated, "That bum is always taking credit for the things my little good boy done.  Back during the 2016 campaign, Trump said he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, and all the evangelical Christians overlooked it and still support him, because he recently started believing like they did about abortion."  Mrs. Cash was referring to her son's famous murder spree, for which he served three concert tours in Folsom Prison and two-hundred hours of community service cleaning up flood damage along the Mississippi valley.  The Cash family has never commented on allegations that Johnny caused that flood in the first place after sitting beside the river and attempting to weep there until his death, which would have set a new world record.  The record attempt was stopped short when the singer was swept away by flooding.  He claimed to have been dragged beneath the Gulf of Mexico by a whirlpool that took him into an underwater volcano.  His claims have never been verified, but he always stuck to his story that he "fell into a burnin' ring o' fire."  The singer never explained how he escaped the ring of fire, but it is assumed his abilities to "turn the tide" and "walk the line" helped.  He showed up back on the mainland weeks later, but his clothes and hat were permanently charred black from the flames.  Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that he can flood the Mississippi with much more effectiveness than Mr. Cash.  "It'll be HUGE!" he exclaimed at the rally, to thunderous applause.

"I suppose next Donald Trump is going to claim he was named Sue at birth," noted Mr. Cash's widow.  "This could be his strategy to get the vote of the LGBTQ-WXYZ crowd."  Stu Pidhead agreed, noting that the President is scheduled this weekend for a rally in San Francisco, featuring his outspoken supporter Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner as a speaker.  "They've never backed him, even though he constantly reminds them he is the best thing that ever happened to them."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckleberry Sanders said the President had no further comment for this article, but she said that speaking for herself, "I'm your huckleberry."  She frequently uses that line when responding to gunfight challenges from the press corps.  None have taken her up on it yet, since nobody knows what it actually means.

(C) Copyright 2019.  Reporting by Victor E. Mowery, Vincent E. Malloy and Vernon E. Maltodextrose.

The Smell of the Seventies - Original Poem

The strong smell of dirty socks on a hot, funky day,
Permeating the closed up, dark-colored rooms
In the house of the freaky seventies people.

Bushy beards and big belt buckles,
And gas pedals shaped like chrome bare feet,
In a scary van, ran by the freaky seventies people.

Headband visors?  Baseball caps without a top!
T-shirt slogans that made even less sense.
And so many sandals, to protect all the feet
From the beer-can pull-tabs dropped by the freaky seventies people.

Gold-colored, round medallions worn around the necks,
Bringing in the luck?  Or warding off the hex?
Separating the Jesus People from all the other freaky seventies people.

And then last night, I woke from my 10,000th nightmare of the
Freaky seventies people and finally figured it out!
That sickly-sweet smell
That seemed to fill every darkened house but ours:
That was not stale dirty socks after all.

VM - 09/06/2018

Will America Ever Learn Her Lesson?

One day about three thousand years ago, 400,000 men all left their wives, homes, jobs, farms and fields to gather together in unity and find out what was the grievous sin they had heard about.  They decided this sin required the death penalty of just a handful of offenders, and they were willing to fight and die in order to carry out the sentence.  26,700 men gathered against them to defend the handful of wicked men and not give them up for sentence.  22,000 men of the larger side were slain in the first day of battle, then another 18,000 the second day.  Then there was a national day of fasting and sacrifices declared, with many costly livestock given in burnt offerings.  The next day, 30 men gave their lives in a suicide mission to ensure the victory for their side.

The other side then lost 25,100 men, nearly all the men of the entire tribe.  The offending city was then sacked, and all their tribe's cities were burnt to the ground.  Only 600 men escaped and hid in caves, having lost all they ever worked for their entire lives.

The world's perspective would be to shake the head and wonder why all this was done over the gang-rape and murder of one lowly slave girl and the threat of sodomy gang-rape against a travelling man.  The pragmatic approach, the results-oriented approach would say it was unreasonable for these 65,000 men to die over this, along with so many other costly impacts to the national economy, not to mention their now-weakened position against foreign military.

God's approach, however, was that such an evil as this needed to be dealt with and purged from the nation, for the entire nation's sake.  It wasn't about the girl, or even about the threatened perversion.  It wasn't about vengeance.  It was about maintaining purity to stay in the favor of a holy God.  The nation could not sit by and let this slide and then expect God's blessings to continue to flow.  From God's perspective, and therefore from the perspective of anybody committed to honoring God above all else, the nation was far better off losing all these men and all the rest, but maintaining God's favor for their commitment to holiness.

The lesson for our nation is obvious from Judges 19 and 20.  We can do whatever we like to stimulate our economy.  We can do whatever we like to promote job growth.  We can do our best to keep our military strong.  But without God's people committing to holiness and the favor of God in everything they do, it is all for nothing.  We cannot approve of gross immorality and public sin by our silence, or by a wink and a nod to capitulate to "the greater good."

There is no excuse to go against holiness for fear of what might happen otherwise.

There is no excuse for anybody who claims to know the Bible to vote for "the lesser of two evils" as if there is no other choice, and a choice for evil of some kind has to be made.

There is no amount of pragmatic wrangling that can justify the Christians of America promoting a man of known immoral character to the highest office in the land, despite all the attempts to justify it like the article linked here does.

Say what you like.  Justify it all you want.  Set up your golden idol.  I will give honour where honour is due, but I will not bow when the music plays.  And when our chickens finally come home to roost for what we've done in November 2016, I will not have to say, "I told you so."  You'll know.

VM

What You Voted for When You Voted for Donald Trump

Before you read any further, please understand first of all that I support and honor the President of the United States as the man placed in that office by the hand of Almighty God in His wise Providential care.  "The powers that be are ordained of God," Romans 13:1.  I support and honor him as the man who rightfully sits in that office according to our cherished Constitution of the United States.  I have sworn to protect and defend our Constitution and I would take up arms to protect Donald Trump's right to occupy the Oval Office.  I am also in agreement with at least 90% or more of his actual policy decisions and directives since taking office.  Further, I absolutely cannot stand the biased media's continual fixation against him.  And this whole Russian "collusion" issue and the way it is presented by the Democrats is an absolute disgrace - on them, not him.

I have to say all of that because some of my readers who voted for Trump are going to get mad as soon as I say that I did NOT vote for Trump.  I just want to be sure you don't get mad for the wrong reasons.  Some of you are already so mad at me just for saying it, that you've already stopped reading or tuned me out.  That's just how some of you Christian Trump voters are, that you would let this immoral man whom you don't even know come between you and a godly brother you've walked with for years.  If that's how you want to be, there's nothing I can do about that.

But if you are open to listening and reading further, I would like to explain why I did not support Donald Trump as a candidate for President, and why no conservative Christian should have.  I tried to explain this to many before the election, but they had already bought non-refundable tickets on the Trump Train and refused to get off long enough to listen.

Think of it like this: knowing what you now know about Richard M. Nixon, if he were miraculously alive and eligible to run for President again, and you totally agreed with the political platform he was running on, could you vote for him?  I'd hope you would say "No way!"  Or suppose Bill Clinton totally changed his politics to agree with you, but changed none of his ways and methods and schemes, and could run again.  "No!"  Or Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt?  Then how could you vote for Donald Trump, knowing what you knew or should have known about that man and his character?

Let's face it.  You voted based on political expediency without considering the real long-term effects of your vote.  You voted for your wallet.  Or you voted for The Wall.  Or you voted for America.  But you didn't vote for Jesus Christ!

You see, you've got it all wrong!  What's best for our country is not conservatism or a great economy, but a strong stand for godliness among God's people!  Notice the following from the Word of God:

Proverbs 14:34 - Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.

Proverbs 29:2 - When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

I believe that Donald Trump's rise to the presidency will have excellent results on our economy (as is already appearing to be the case), wonderful strides forward in foreign relations, solutions to many problems facing our nation, and an absolutely disastrous impact on the morality of society in general and the upcoming generations of Christians in particular.  The economic and political good wrought will be but temporary and fleeting, spoken of in past tense when Trump is a memory like Reagan.  But the moral decline will be long term or permanent, and much more damaging as our country moves farther and farther from the blessings of God.

Multiple Christians told me before the election that they were voting for Trump because there was "too much at stake."  Yes, there was a lot at stake, only not what they thought!

The various objections such as "not voting for Trump is effectively voting for Hillary," all boil down to this:  You just don't trust God!

Pay attention to this:

Psalms 118:9 - It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.

Psalms 146:3 - Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

And this: 

Deuteronomy 28:1 - And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth.

You think Trump is going to "Make America Great Again?"  America will never be great again until America is Godly Again!  That is not anything Donald Trump can help with!  In fact, his election, with the blessing of most Christians, is a step in the opposite direction.

You see, Christian, here is what you voted for when you voted for Donald Trump:

You voted to trade God's blessings on holy choices for the world's blessings on smart political moves.  How is the Trump economy boost going to help us if our vote for the ungodly forfeits even more of God's blessings?  How is Trump's forceful foreign policy going to keep us safe if we discount our need for God's protection?

You voted to forever surrender the right of all conservative Christians to express moral outrage at sexual immorality, adultery, lewdness, bikini contests, serial divorce, etc.  You voted for the reigning prince of these things to be the governing President of your nation.  Ten, twenty or fifty years from now, not only you, but all conservative Christians by association with their collective vote, will have zero credibility with the unsaved world in trying to take any kind of stand against these things.  Yeah, some salt and light we are now!  I hope you like your tax cut.  Give the extra money to foreign missions; it won't do as much good here any more.  We'll all feel like we have to zip our lip and bite our tongue, thanks to the overwhelming vote of Christians for Trump.

You voted to impress to your children that character is important, unless there is a difficult decision to make (between a rock and hard place, like not letting Hillary win, for example), and then character is not really an issue after all.  But you should have been teaching them that in the midst of such difficult decisions, character should be a paramount issue!

You voted to teach your children that taking a godly stand is only important if your stand will actually win.  If your godly stand would cause your preference to lose, then hold your nose and take your lumps.  But that has been the pragmatic problem that has been chipping away at the holiness of our Bible-believing churches for decades.  What will the churches in fifty years look like that are run by the children who learned this from Trump-voting parents?

You say, "What would have happened to us if Hillary had won because Christians refused to back Trump?"  First of all, Trump wouldn't have been on the ticket in that case, so the problem goes back before the conventions.  But even so, a question like that misses the point.  It is again putting trust in men and not in God.  Whatever results from taking a godly stand is always a VICTORY for Christ and Christians.  WHATEVER RESULTS.  Three Hebrew children being thrown into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow, would have still been a victory even if the flames consumed them.  Look at it from an eternal perspective, not a temporal one.  Hillary winning the election because Christians cast a third-option vote in protest would have been a major victory for a godly stand -- and a bigger wake-up call to the Republican party than Trump ever was.

You didn't want wicked Hillary Clinton to win.  Neither did I.  But our nation would be in a better spot if a wicked woman won without the support of Christians than if a wicked man won with their support.  In such a case, history shows God's blessings and protections on our families, our churches, and even our nation (for our sakes, Proverbs 11:10) would have more than made up the difference.

I don't know what exactly would have happened if Hillary won, but my hands would be clean.  Are your hands clean of the mess that's coming from Trump's win?  Is your vote going to come up for review at the Judgment Seat of Christ?  Didn't you owe it to your country before the election to stop and sit down and figure out exactly what you were voting for?

NOW... you can get mad.

VM

Kansas Pride - Original Cartoon

-VM, February 1, 2018