7-9-02

In the case of Catholic priests it was lust for sex and with the CEOs it's lust for money. How often inordinate desire in either area has brough down shame and disgrace upon any found guilty, or merely being suspect. Our entire population are riding through a rough storm of crisis in confidence. Who can you turst? So maybe we should open our Bibles to that central text of all the verses, Ps.118:8 "It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man." I believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture but had never thought that the numbering of chapters or verses was inspired until I recently learned that there are 1188 total chapters in the 66 books. Half are before the Ps.118, then it begins the other half that follow. That makes 1188 total a very significant number. I think. (matches the center text, Ps.118:8. Utterly remarkable!). Then seeing the shortest chapter of the Bible right before that Psalm and the longest one the very next after it (Ps.117 & 119) recalls how Christ in Revelation calls Himself "the Alpha and the Omega." I don't see how scholars could have manipulated that to speak so clearly in the Protestant canon. Now fasten your seat belts for a large literary leap: It shows the eighth second of the eighth minute in the eleventh hour (on the clock of human destiny). Don't throw this column aside yet, because that's even a little more time left than on the famous doomsday clock of Cold War vintage. But it's getting mighty close to midnight just the same. Thus, it's so good to see the strong gain of our N.Y.stock market last Friday, since there were no repeats of 9/11 on Independence Day as was widely feared. But the confidence crisis left by these other man-made (or devil-made) disasters may drag the market back down even more. I think of that line from "Just As I Am": "fightings within and fears without. Oh Lamb of GOD I come, I come." Billy Graham has made that familiar to everyone and now all America needs to be singing it. Perhaps yet more will be revealed about the LAX shooting on July 4. Being the nation's second largest city (not Chicago anymore), it could hold indications of the same vulnerability as NYC had if some connection is discovered. That Israeli security officer who killed the shooter most certainly saved a lot of other lives than the two the Arab had already gunned down. But it cost us the loss of the person useful for an explanation. When I told an inmate at chapel Sunday night that the FBI had given assurances there was no terrorism connection, he quipped "You believe those Fumbling, Bumbling Idiots?" bespeaking another sign of widespread confidence failure. So read Ps.118:8, with verse 9 to underscore it even more because "princes" refers to mankind's very most trustworthy.

I like to take evangelical songs and make them inclusive by replacing "I" with "we." Never could do that with "Just As I Am." But think it may work for Ps.23. How do you feel about this try? "Yahweh is our shepherd, we shall not want. He maketh us to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth us beside the still waters. He restoreth our souls. He leadeth us in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil. For Thou art with us. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort us. Thou preparest a table before us in the presence of our enemies. Thou anointest our heads with oil. Our cup runeth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives. And we will dwell in the house of Yahweh forever."

I read Genesis 26 to the inmates in chapel Sunday night because the events about Abraham's miracle son Isaac seemed so timely. It was almost an exact repeat of his father's experience among the Philistines, who had stopped up the wells Abraham's servants had dug. Isaac got them dug open and in use again while asserting ownership of the land given to him by Yahweh. He prospered so greatly that the Philistines had to accept his claim and made a peace (shalom) agreement with him. Of course it was broken as they later became the arch enemies of Israel. So then I asked "Where did the name 'Palestine' come from?" There was a chorus of voices saying "Philistine." These guys in prison who read their Bibles faithfully can see what's still going on in the Middle East today. As king David was raised up to establish the kingdom for Israel, the final coming of Christ Jesus our Lord will establish a Kingdom of Heaven on earth for the Israel of GOD. Israel and Islam today are Isaac and Ishmael still in contention. Though Ishmael was older, he wasn't the beloved son of Abraham whose name means "laughter." Isaac was born of the wife, Sarah; Ishmael of her Egyptian slave girl, Hagar. Isaac's son Jacob gained a new name, Israel (wrestler with GOD and man). So Israelites (Jews & Christians) wrestle with destiny while Islam (Muslim) demands submission to Allah instead. A UN sponsored study of the Arab nations has shown them where lack of democracy under authoritarian government has caused them to lag behind in human development. That may be the root of their jealous hatred of the west as I see it. They are not free to wrestle with their divine master Allah, but only submit to his almighty will. Kismit is the Arab word for fate or Allah's decree. It is a master-slave mentality.

7-13-02 I usually enjoy the humor in Argus Hamilton's column, though it's often a little out-of-bounds for me. His dad's a retired Methodist minister who was once my district superintendent. And his younger brother's a minister too. But I just didn't get any chuckles from the way he dealt with Ted Williams' body being frozen instead of buried. That new field of cryogenics may have some merit not apparent now, as the family pays for the corpse of their loved one to be refrigerated until new technology makes it possible to resuscitate them. But it seems to me even stranger than SETI, the search for extraterrestial intelligence. Still both have a growing number of believers. So I just remembers how helpful the mummies of ancient Egypt to show us about that long gone civilization; things we would never understand if they had not been preserved for posterity. And more recently the bodies of Linen and Stalin were both kept by cooling in the Kremlin. and embalming in the Kremlin (we called them "the cold cuts" back then). Now Ted's son says it's to preserve his DNA. i heard one suggestion that was to clone it later for producing baseball greats. Just have to wait and see I guess. I heard that he wanted to be cremated himself, which would have been a lot cheaper than than the $130,000 it's costing out there in Arizona. And we thought funerals were expensive. Yet no one plans to make any money from bodies of those buried. We just pray for the coming of the Lord Jesus when those who sleep in Him will be raised from the grave and made immortal glorified bodies, the same as His. I just don't find death a laughable subject weighted as it is with eternity. But even my grandmother Hightower once told me as a boy "son you're too serious." Maybe` it will all be funny in the bye and bye where she has gone long ago.
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