Lost Crusader #121 But If Not…

 “…our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out thine hand O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods…”

Daniel 3:17-18

It is rather presumptuous of people to claim to know the mind of God and what God will or will not choose to do in a specific circumstance. Of course, that does not preclude God from telling people in advance of His intentions. For the Christian, in every life situation, God is sovereign.

Without a word from God in advance, it is enough for us to know God is able and to possess a willingness to accept God’s sovereignty. The scripture does not say whether the three men in this story had such an advanced word from God. They were, however, very confident, not only in God’s ability but His willingness as well (he will deliver us).

The real lesson here is that their faith was not dependent on God behaving a certain way or answering a specific prayer. They made this clear by stating, But if not, whatever the consequences, our faith in God remains the same.

As well-known as this story is, one cannot help but wonder why we did not hear Christians and their churches echoing the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in 2020 when the king command churches close.

Oh, we heard lots of God is able to deliver us, and God will deliver us from Covid, but nary a word saying, but if not, we will face whatever comes of our refusing to bow. Had our pastors, priests, and deacons forgotten the oft-told Sunday School lesson? Did they not believe it? Or were they simply too afraid of the governor, their neighbors, and the virus to act as if God were with them either way? The men in the story were prepared to die. We were afraid of a virus with a 99+% survival rate.

We have abrogated taking prayerful, reasoned action for our lives and our health to the whims of government and the monied interests government partners with. There is no sin in taking precautions—wearing a mask, being vaccinated, and being boosted if that is a person’s decision. It is evil to the nth degree to shut the church doors because the State says we must.

A person may value the law while refusing to comply with it for conscience’s sake. The caveat is that the same person must be prepared to accept the penalty prescribed by the law. The men in our text raised no fuss against the king's decree of death. There were no cries of oppression, inequality, or walking around town while Jewish. Death was the penalty for disobedience, and they had decided they would pay the price rather than comply.

The roots of civil disobedience lie deep in American soil—deeper still in Judeo-Christian faith and practice. Where did the decision to comply and close our doors come from?

Fear.

But that’s just my opinion, discount it as you will for what it is. In the quiet time of your prayer and meditation, therein lies your answer to the question. There you will also find the remedy, should you need one.

Never fear, we will revisit the lesson again soon.

Maranatha

The Colonel #83 More is Less

 The government is best which governs least.

The words have been credited to Thoreau, Jefferson, and Locke. Who said it is not as important as the spirit embodied in those words. It is the spirit that founded a nation and propelled it to greatness. It is the spirit lacking in those people who cannot see that greatness.

It is not really a country that spirit made great. Countries are simply a reflection of the people who inhabit them. Before the Spirit of 76 was splashed upon a canvas it possessed a people, inspired a revolution, and instituted a new government built on the principle that the people rule.

If that government is flawed, it that it sprang from the hearts and minds of flawed humans. But the craftsmen that put it together had a keen understanding of human nature and its foibles. They tried to balance the evil and good, they saw in the human soul and in themselves.

They were students of history, knowing well that of which men were capable. They had risked their homes and honor together, fought together, and now they had to live together. Through it all, they were convinced that good would triumph if given the freedom to do so.

It was their general belief that the more government intruded upon its citizens, the less free those citizens became. In that sense, they saw government as no more than a necessary evil. This modern woke generation has provided ample evidence of how correct the founders were in their assumption that government unchecked is a monster that devours liberty.

We wanted the government to assume responsibility for our health. In response to our desires, the government locked us in our homes (well, they tried), As if that weren’t enough, it is willing to deprive individuals of their livelihood, while crowing about how well they are caring for the compliant.

Just the other day, I saw a father teaching his very young daughter to stand on the Xs the government-mandated stores provide us. I couldn’t help thinking that free thought was breathing its last.

It is the assumption of our evolved government that the common people do not possess the mental capacity to make their own decisions. The world has become too complicated for us, or so we are told every day. Let the government experts do the thinking and planning—they know what’s best for everybody.

Hear the wisdom of Solomon; “yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man…”

Slumber on America, let the experts think for you—just dream about all the peace, safety, and security, they have given you—and it’s all free.

The only things that are no longer free are the people.

Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Know Jack #333 Write Like You’re Somebody

 Critics of St. Paul complained that while he wrote these great letters, he wasn’t much in person. James Madison was adept at presenting well-reasoned written arguments. However, he was a rather sickly sort and people complained his voice was weak and perhaps a bit irritating. Whatever their physical weaknesses may have been both were skilled with a pen.

In many ways, a writer exists only on paper. What you have done for a living, the degrees you’ve earned, and your many exploits while traveling around the world might make for an exciting biographical blurb on a back cover, but it’s still the words on the pages inside that count.

For your pages to shine, there must be a positive message that comes from the author’s heart and soul to make the words memorable. That does not mean your books must be warm and fuzzy. One of my all-time favorite books is Come Nineveh, Come Tyre by Allen Drury. The story is anything but positive. However, the character of soul and a fighting spirit of some of the characters makes the book inspirational as well as terrifying.

Think about the books you have read more than once. Why did you do that when you already knew the story? Was it because the author was famous, or because he was handsome, or because he went to Oxford? I don’t think so.

Your read that book again because the writing carried you away to a place that you may not even have known you wanted to go. Then later, you were willing to forget the ending, or at least put it out of your mind, just to take the trip once more.

If the author truly has done the job, he/she is invisible—they are just a voice that points your imagination along the way. Strive to be a voice. If his words transport you to another place and time, Joseph Merrick would fare as well as an author as whoever People is touting as sexy these days.

I will admit that celebrity sells. Look (if you can) at Michelle Obama. But honestly, who wants to read that tripe? People buy stuff like that to be seen buying it or to display it on their shelves to show how woke/deluded they are.

Thank God, I have the luxury of not having to make a living from my royalties. I won’t say money doesn’t matter, but book sales represent the number of people who read your book. That is important because if you didn’t want people to read your book, it would still be in a drawer somewhere.

Writers tend to be extremely critical of themselves. I won’t say don’t do that—we all know we will. I will say this, save it for late at night when you are all alone. When you step into the arena with your book, do it like you’re as good as anyone in the room. Write like you're somebody because—you are!

Maranatha

Lost Crusader #120 The Simple Science of Experimental Christianity

 What is faith? A great many Christians I know would quote for me, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I was once one of that number. However, beautifully written that verse is, it is a description of faith, not a definition. A definition is far more involved because of its moving parts.

For a definition, let’s go back a month to the Christmas story and take a look at faith as demonstrated by the shepherds in that account. Hidden in the story of the shepherds as told in the Gospel of Luke lies the very essence of faith—and it is told with eyes wide open.

We have an unknown number of shepherds who are watching their flocks as all good shepherds do. Suddenly, light shines all around them throwing a scare into them. An angel appears and tells them not to be afraid, the Messiah has come. A group of angels joins the first angel telling them that the Messiah brings an era of peace with God and God’s good will to men.

Their hypothesis is that God has done something to bring His good will to all people. But how do they measure the truth to determine if the hypothesis is true?

They are told that they can test the truth by going to Bethlehem where they will find a baby in swaddling clothes in a manger. This baby is the Messiah. The angels leave them to think it over. They decide to conduct the experiment. “Let us now go even to Bethlehem, and see this thing…”

Having a hypothesis and a way to test it, the act to carry out the experiment. They go to Bethlehem—and boom! There’s everything just like the angel said.

In conclusion, “…the shepherds returned (to their flocks), glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told to them.

So, then faith has multiple parts. There is hearing something is true (because God has said it). There is reasoning and discussion about what to think of this possible truth that ends in a decision to investigate. Finally, there is acting on what has been heard to discover if it is indeed as described.

Hearing, deciding, and action—it takes all three to make faith. The result is joy. It is simple science, duplicatable, and standing up to peer review. The Christian faith lives by personal experimentation. It is a far cry from blind, and even further from modern scientific study results bought with money.

My generation as many before it, have been deluded into thinking science and faith are polar opposites whereas both begin with a reasoned supposition, are determined to have objective data to study, and are tested. Reason is the root of both, not the property of only one.

The reason that I have faith is that it has been, and continues to be, tried without alteration in the truth of the experiment’s original hypothesis—taste and see, the Lord is good.

Maranatha

https://www.jacklafountainauthor.com/blog

Know Jack #332 The Voice of Experience

 “Write what you know about.”

                             Mark Twain

 

Twain may not be the only writer to give that advice, but he is a great example of a fervent follower of it. Of course, that has gotten him banned by Woke America most of whom cannot grasp the value and message of books like Huckleberry Finn because it contains words unapproved words.

I hear Microsoft has developed a new Word tool that not only checks spelling and grammar but points out better Woke word choices for authors. It allows you to keep a watch on pronouns, gender bias, race, and cultural sensitivity.

In other words, it erases the author’s voice in favor of the collective voice. My question is, where’s the fun in that? Why read a writer’s work but to hear his/her voice—to enter into what they know about from the voice that lived it?

A writer’s word choices and phraseology are a window on their life experience that allow the reader to connect on a level deeper than the page. It’s not just the words they know, but how they string them together.

Life colors speech. Those people with law enforcement and military backgrounds have an affinity for certain words and what they want to convey in a scene. I have found the same true of content writers and screenwriters. Male and female writers will describe a car very differently—sorry non-binaries.

As a nurse, I was taught to avoid nouns and pronouns and focus on verbs. Precise details about size and colors were very important. That’s a skill most male nurses who own a simple eight-color box of crayons have to work harder at than their female counterparts who own that giant 256 color box.

I have a practiced pattern of King James Bible sentence structure and word usage that, like the book, sometimes sound awkward and confusing to those not indoctrinated to it. Trying to sort that out with my military and nursing speech patterns is always amusing.

What I’m trying to say is that, like St. Peter outside the trial, “thy speech bewrayeth thee.” Who you are, and your life experience undergirds your writing and tells something about you. That being the case, bring that out in the open and flaunt it. It worked for Mark Twain.

Maranatha     

 

Lost Crusader #119 Small Sacrifices

 “…thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them (idols)…”

Ezekiel 16:21

There has been much made about when life begins, protecting the unborn, and raging against trafficking in children. Those discussions provide a convenient outward-pointing distraction from the great active sacrificing of children going on every day in the name of education.

Sacrificing their children to the god Molech was in vogue in the prophet’s day. The goal was to bring the blessings of the god upon the land. The blessing was not confined to the parents. The sacrifice was for the good of all—the entire nation was to prosper from the beneficence of the appeased Molech.

Is that so different from loading unguarded children into a bus or car and delivering them to the popular poison that passes for classroom instruction? Feed them to the appetite of the village if you will, but God will not turn a blind eye to the parental abdication of His command to train up a child in the way they should go.

Christian, you—and you alone, bear responsibility for the minds and hearts of your children. That does not mean that they must adopt your faith or heed your teaching. It means only that you must provide that teaching and stand in the gap between the innocent and the secular indoctrination.

We don’t need prayer or moral instruction in schools. We need them at home. Home is where critical thinking must be taught. Home is not a place for pat answers. It is the place to instill young minds with a willingness to question everything—even the faith of their parents.

Thinking is quietly being abolished in public education in favor of compliance with mandates from above. Ironically, the very thing for which those outside the faith ridicule Christians.

Christianity places a high value on obedience to God. However, contrary to some, it is not, and never has been blind obedience. It is obedience gleaned from experimental practice and much closer to science than what society touts as science than the money-driven drivel spouted by “experts”.

Yet, Christians and churches daily feed their children into the gospel of the State. Can God possibly be happy with that? I suppose it’s possible since He was pleased with the closing of church doors at the command of the State. The example we set in doing so was certainly not lost on the young.

The best lessons are those taught by living models and personal experience. Children do not need to go to school or pick up a book to learn. They have instructors all around them every minute. That is why training is committed to those who are supposed to love and value them the most.

Training up a child comes with no guarantees except that they will recall what they see and hear. They will do what they have seen done. Commit to them, then a thirst for truth and a love of freedom.

“…keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”

Maranatha