Unlike others, I don’t believe we need to prepare to battle with guns and other physical weapons of war.  We don’t fight against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers of darkness.  Sometimes that battle is waged spiritually, the enemy demonizing our beliefs, creating depression in ourselves or suspicion of others.  But more often, the battle is waged physically and mentally, conducted by his followers here in the world that we see.

In America, believers have not yet faced physical torture for their faith.  But that time is coming.  There is already growing intolerance for Christians among the ruling class.  Mark my words, it will continue to increase exponentially; right now, I see it more in mental attacks, but physical persecution is the next step.   

Am I strong enough to stand? 

And I am thankful!

Tomorrow may be a stressful day, as we participate with the church in feeding 500 people who are less fortunate than we are.  (I don’t think it should be too hard to find those people, given the economic conditions).  I was appointed a leader of those who are to serve the meal, actually dip the food onto plates, as well as make sure things are kept clean, and people are helped along.  It’s stressful because I don’t really know a lot of them very well.  But, after tomorrow, we should know each other quite a bit better, I should think!

And I am thankful!

Financially, this was a good year.  We didn’t get rich, by any account, but we really have more than enough.  Business was good, even with the loss of the pool company as one of our customers. 

And I am thankful!

We were blessed with the birth of Lilly, David’s daughter.  Such a beautiful little girl!  We were worried about our visit with David this year; our relationship has not been good the last few years.  But we had an excellent visit; I had such a good time getting to know Stephanie, Katy, Emily, and, of course, Lilly.  But I really enjoyed being with David, and seeing him interact with Stephanie and his girls.  He is a good man.

And I am thankful!

We were also blessed with the birth of Cade, Elizabeth’s son.  What a joy!  We were able to fly out to Colorado and visit with Elizabeth, Bernard and Cade, and that was such a good visit.  Elizabeth is a good mommy.

And I am thankful!

And there is so much more!

And I am thankful!

First, I want to present the outline of Mike’s sermon.

LET THERE BE LIFE

"You shall not murder.”

Exodus 20:13

WHAT THIS COMMAND IS NOT ABOUT:

It is not prohibiting killing ANIMALS.

Genesis 9:3, “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”

It is not prohibiting capital PUNISHMENT

Leviticus 24:17-18, "If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death. Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution – life for life.”

Romans 13:4, “For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”

It is not prohibiting going to WAR

Ecclesiastes 3:8, “…a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

HOW THIS COMMAND APPLIES TO THE FAMILY

God says NO to SUICIDE

Romans 14:7, “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone.”

Job 14:5, “Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.”

God says NO to MERCY KILLING

Job 12:10, “In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”

God says NO to ABORTION

Psalm 139:13-16, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

Proverbs 20:4, “A lazy man does not plow in season;
          so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”

Plowing is the unseen and unappreciated work of a farmer.  Through much of history – and still in many parts of the world today – it meant trudging behind an ox or horse, trying to keep it going in a straight line, walking over clods of dirt being broken up by the plow.  Today in America, it’s done by Super Tractors, but even then, it must be rather dull and mind-numbing.  Regardless of how it is done, it is certainly not glamorous.

That’s true of most of what we call “work.”  It’s not fun to watch or talk about.  It’s rather dull and mind-numbing sometimes, maybe punctuated by moments of excitement – or – maybe not.  It’s just doing what’s necessary to produce the final result.  It’s what we all have to do on our jobs:  the unseen, unappreciated, dull, mind-numbing, four-letter word, “WORK.”

It amazes me here, that the lazy man doesn’t do any work, but he still looks for a harvest!!  How foolish is that?!  Hard work is not glamorous, and seems so unrewarding, when harvest is so far away.  It may even seem to be a waste of time.  But it is that hard work of preparation that makes the frantic pace of harvest bearable, and increases the yield, and thus the profit.

I went to Pravda’s website and looked up the article, and – I’m not really surprised by what I read.  I’m pretty sure they may have some insight into what’s happening that we may not have.  What do you think?

You can read the article on their website by going here.

                                                                                                                                       — Les

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin

Railroad tracks.

This is fascinating.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number.

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s. The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB’s would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds. 

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass. And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important? Ancient horse’s asses control almost everything…

And CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.

�

So much of “church” today just seems so non-essential.  It seems to be more involved in entertainment, education, “pot-luck” fellowship, etc., rather than the type of radical life that Jesus called his followers to live.  We have become “maintainers” of the status quo, and experts celebrating mini-changes in people’s lives.  Unfortunately, I see more of “Pharisee” and “lawyer” in church than I see “fisherman” and “tax collector.”

Yes, Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her, but he also called us to “deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow” him.

http://www.acleareye.com/thoughts/Article_Nine_Predictions_for_2009.pdf

I think the essence of trust is finding our way back to being children again.  We long for the stability and innocence of childhood, but those things are built upon the foundation of trust.  We long to trust God like we trusted our parents (those of us from “good” homes), knowing that He will never let us “go it alone.”  He will always be there.

I don’t really know what I’m talking about this morning.  I am so struggling with my own base humanity, how defenseless I am to Satan’s influence.  How easy I fall and fail!  How unrepentant I am, not wanting to give up my little vices.

I am free-falling.