FACT AND FICTION

This pastor from the fourth century was born in what today would be known as Turkey.  Forensic pathologists have used computers to reconstruct his image from his 1,600-year-old skull.  Here is what history teaches about Nicholas of Myra.

...he was a short man (5 ft) who lived from 270-346AD

...born into wealthy Greek family who lived in coastal city on Mediterranean

...orphaned as a child; thereafter had a heart for children

...secret gift-giver with liberality toward those in need

...nasal bone between eyes broken; attributed to 

persecution of Christians under Diocletian

...devoted to Christ and served as pastor and bishop of the church

...had a seat at Council of Nicaea which produced our Apostles Creed

Why mention this good man?  You are seeing him everywhere...at the mall and ringing a bell @WalMart.  The man is St. Nicholas.  More olive-skinned than Scandinavian...more like a fighter than a jolly old elf...you may be wondering how in the world St. Nicholas morphed into Santa Claus.

The answer begins in 1822 when Dr. Clement Clark Moore wrote this whimsical poem for his children.    http://www.nightbeforechristmas.biz/moore.htm  (Note:  the New York Times takes issue with who really wrote the poem.)        http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/26/arts/26NIGH.html

Apparently Dr. Moore (who taught classics and languages at a New York seminary) was always embarrassed that in light of the body of his scholarly theological works, he would be best known for "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

Then in 1947, MIRACLE ON 34th STREET perpetuated the caricature of the jolly old man.

It's interesting to think back and watch a truly heroic man become a fictional character that is held up to children...while frankly, confusing them.  Santa knows when you've been naughty or nice?  He sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake?  Whew.  He's been assigned some pretty divine qualities along the way. 

St. Nicholas was a real man who loved God's Word and loved to give.  He lived a productive life imitating/serving his Savior.  

So we can tell Virginia "Yes, there really IS a St. Nicholas.  And he deserves a lot more credit".

http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=5369bb601ac44bfdda928110b&id=a2aaae7edb&e=e7c870fc44

FETCH THE FIBRILLATOR

 Our church has about a half-dozen seasoned members who have spent time on the heart floor of our hospital lately.

None of them eat like this.  They are not even overweight...their tickers are just troubled.

So it seemed fitting that our congregation should consider getting a defibrillator.

Of course with a population in their 70's and 80's...some immediately said "Oh, don't bring me back!  If He is calling, I'm ready to go."

Others allowed as how they were counting on their heavenly home, but knew that a heart attack was survivable and they wanted to live.

Some wondered about operating the machine and being legally vulnerable. Sad times when fear of legal action trumps compassion.

The defibrillator people assure us they send out a trainer...and the device is so sophisticated that it will not allow a shock unless all the signs line up for pushing the button.

So the vote was FOR the big purchase.  Now we have to get the list of those who want to be revived...and the list of those who don't.  Then we try not to get confused.  One lady said "I want Mike to operate the machine for me...he will read the instructions." Yes, some of us are more detail-oriented.

 Our new defibrillator can be a huge blessing for our church.  In September when one of our members had a heart spell, I can say that the impotence of sitting while the episode played out was excruciating.

I believe the Lord unlocks knowledge for our good and a defibrillator in a school or church or public area is a terrific tool.  We marvel at technology and the outflow of things that earlier went unimagined.  I can speak proudly of my new knee and how that has made life easier for me.

But technology has also allowed us into uncharted and gray areas.  We now decide whether to take away life-giving measures.  We decide what to do with artificially inseminated embryos.  We clone.  We're getting pretty big for our britches.

Some things cross the line into "His business".  Can we agree that there IS a line to honor?

I certainly can't assume to know His prerogatives or plans.

Didn't He say "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine."  Isaiah 55.8

I sure wouldn't consider applying for His position.

Jehovah God says "I am the Lord and there is no other." Isaiah 45.5

NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

 "Toto, we're not in Kansas any more!"  But Mike and I WERE there last week.

Mike has had his heart set on a ginormous KS deer for some time. Surely this would be the year.  He found a guide (that he likes enough to adopt) and he made big plans.  And I got to go along!

Hunting gives Mike "space" and he competes against himself/the elements/the wildlife (a manthing).  My needs were satisfied and then some because I got to take books and beads and no schedule.

We drove less than two hours from Fayetteville and were in Kansas.  Actually, we were on the outskirts of Joplin, Missouri.  We were sissy-camping on the concrete RV parking lot of Downstream Casino (exit 1 right on the Missouri and Oklahoma border) and 17 miles from where Mike was to hunt.  

The driveway into the casino is in Missouri, the casino is in Oklahoma, and the parking lot was in Kansas.  I guess they have figured out how to get the taxes divided.... 

Because it was freezing @night, the camping crowd was very sparse.  My security needs were met with lots of cameras and security that drove by periodically.  To encourage visitors, the casino gives you three free nights on the camping space and then it is $15/night.  People brag about the buffets at casinos, so I was satisfied to lollygag in the camper and then buffet at night.  The first night the meal was good, but the air quality made the trip our last.  Mike later talked to a worker who proudly said they spent $250,000 on the air system.  But I don't know how anyone breathes in that smokey air.

The first morning, Mike left "home" at 4:30 a.m. and returned about 6:30 p.m.

I reached my goal of doing nothing, but sadly Mike didn't reach his goal.  He got no deer after sitting 12 hours on a stand in weather that began in the 20's, with wind gusts up to 25 mph.  Mike had layers of down, hand warmers, and a peanut butter sandwich.  Plus anticipation.

Over the four days, Mike saw several bucks...but he was high-grading and wanted to go home with "BigBoy".

He did make several new friends including the casino shuttle driver who was a Quapaw Indian.  Because the Quapaws are from Arkansas...and because Mike loves the Indian culture...they struck up several big conversations.  You may know that Quapaw means "downstream people" (hence the casino name).

A retail opportunity fell out of the blue and into my lap.  Friends had told me of a great place out from Joplin called Sandstone Gardens, a shop on 68 acres which has home and garden decor and a tea room and lots of concrete statuary.  I had no idea that it was @our exit!  The inside was a feast of eye candy and the creative juices flowed.  I found part of Laura and Beth's Christmas there.

 Then on the weekend, we met our neighborhood Community Group in Branson and went with them to Silver Dollar City.

Here are all fourteen of us on the front row of a great production of Scrooge's Christmas.

Sunday morning we had a worship service with a guitar and communion and we all shared the verse that had propped us up longterm.

What a grand time of feasting on God's grace!

LEEKS AND CUCUMBERS

Last week's Sunday School lesson has set wheels spinning in my head.  We are in Numbers 11, studying the wilderness wandering after the Exodus.


My oh-so-excellent Sunday School teacher was explaining how Moses was putting in overtime as he tried to lead his flock of malcontents.

The children of Israel had chosen to employ the ever-alluring "blame others" option by moaning about how they were in a pickle and it was all Moses' fault.  They cried because life was hard for them without Egypt's cucumbers and leeks.  In that complaint, somehow they had forgotten that they DIDN'T have the sting of the whip or dawn-to-dusk brickmaking.  When their murmuring reached the ears of their intercessor Moses, it displeased him.

If I had been Moses I might have wanted to fund their desire for getting up a busload to go back to Egypt.

In the narrative, their desperate words are recorded.  They said "but who will give us meat?"...

WAIT.

In the span of time that Israel was in Egypt, they went from being a nomadic, collectively self-sufficient people...to people who looked to government to take care of them.  Some were children of slaves and perhaps had heard their parents talk of how hard life was in bondage.  Now they were thinking that life as free men wasn't so much to crow about.

They had lost their focus.  And frankly, they had lost their good sense.

Instead of being God-dazzled by all of the miracles they were honored to witness, they were circumstance-dazzled.  Instead of pursuing a thankful attitude for the manna and quail, they clamored for the abundance (the leeks and cucumbers) that they found so easy to get used to.  Now it was out with the Promised Land and in with the known commodity.  They wanted Egypt as provider.  They didn't trust God.

How long does it take for self-sufficient people to swerve into helplessness?  A generation?  Two?  I kept thinking how much that story sounded like my country.

BEYOND JOBLESSNESS
The number of people on government aid swells beyond joblessness and compromises self reliance. We can trust God that He has a good purpose for "work" in our lives.  And when men are paid not to work, something starts to disintegrate.  Lord, allow us to understand and value the work ethic in our society.

COLLECTIVE SELF-RELIANCE
America has a history of collective self-reliance as government was structured around Judeo-Christian tenants.  We help each other under God.  It was Christians who established universities and hospitals and organizations to protect the helpless.  God said it was not good for man to live alone...and then He modeled community as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Lord, help us see the foolishness of autonomous living...or living under a faux benefactor.

ACTS 17.26 BLESSING
Our country may not be the Promised Land, but it is an exceptional place to be born.  Give us a heart of gratitude for our liberty, Lord.   Our country is a gift that blesses our lives and also blesses the world.  It began as a safe place for Your kingdom to be proclaimed.  God, help us not take America for granted.

But most of all, Lord...

It is YOU who gives all good gifts.  Help us trust You as our Provider.

OVERSTIMULATED

TWENTY BILLION of our stimulus dollars went to green industries to stimulate job growth and the economy.

Know precisely where those dollars went?  SEVENTEEN of the TWENTY BILLION went to Obamaites...people on his re-election committee and bundlers who raised money for him.  Really?  Eighty percent of the money went to cronies?

There used to be a word for that back when we knew what "corruption" was.

For just a minute, forget stimulating the economy and creating jobs.  Let's just look at a raw cash cow:

SOLYNDRA
At the tip of unsustainable business models sits a company whose name you recognize from the news.  We have heard about it because a whistleblower called into a talk program back in September and the next day the FBI swarmed Solyndra headquarters to confiscate papers.   http://www.breitbart.tv/ex-solyndra-employee-everyone-knew-the-plant-wouldnt-work/     

What was the beef?  As they built the extremely expensive, state-of-the-art building with our dollars, everyone already knew the Chinese were producing their product cheaper.  So less than a year later, it predictably folded and took our wad of cash ($500 million) with it.

BRIGHTSOURCE
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s green company needed DEEP POCKETS to bail them out.  That would be you and I...to the tune of $1.4 BILLION dollars through a loan guarantee from a "former" employee of BrightSource who went to work for us at our Energy Department.

It is hard to envision a company that couldn't get float on $1.4 billion.




FORMER VP GORE'S GREEN COMPANIES
Let's say former VP Al Gore put 16 million and Senator Dianne Feinstein put 1 million into a startup.

Then suppose the Feds GIVE them a grant.  Not a loan...a TAXFREE CHECK from the slush fund called "stimulus" that you and I funded.  Next, the stockholders go public and issue an IPO.  Within 18 months, Gore's investment goes to 89 million.  Nice.  He has every right to invest and make money...isn't that capitalism?

NOT IF MY MONEY FINANCES HIM.

When Mike put his 30 years in working for the government, he was under layers of regulation that restricted what could be done that even SEEMED like influence-peddling.  No one could so much as buy lunch for a government worker.  Nevermind working in a political campaign...we couldn't even put a candidate's sign in our yard.  

Perhaps you are thinking that these green technology companies are the future and government should invest in the future.  Investing in risky, demonstrable losers that their own number-crunchers advised against?  You might say...well, they were creating jobs that are badly needed.  Yes.  Jobs.  And the number of jobs BrightSource created averaged out to be $1 million per job.  

Now a pronouncement comes down from on high.  http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/6645-solyndra-staff-get-13000-taa-federal-aid  The Labor Department has decided something novel; ALL of the 1,100 ex-employees of Solyndra have each been declared eligible for $13k in federal aid.  That's right.  The taxpayer will now add $14.3 million MORE dollars, which added to Solyndra's initial loan guarantee makes over half a BILLION.

That's a hard furball to swallow.  The rationale is given is that the workers were hurt by overseas competition.  UH, yeah!  Now we're back to those pesky Chinese.  But since when is GOVERNMENT in the severance package business, propping up private employees whose company goes belly-up?

The environmental movement is on shaky ground because not everyone is convinced of the science.  But everyone SHOULD BE convinced of a frail economy that doesn't need to try and change horses in mid-stream...and particularly if the horses are running toward red.

A late news release says Solyndra has only received a very lowball offer for their equipment and another very lowball for the property.  So don't count on seeing our 500 MIL investment.  Taxpayers poured money out of a boot.

So are these guys creating jobs or creating billionaires?  Are they environmental saviors or profiteers?  The rest of us non-caring, knuckle-dragging, poor-steward schlubbs are just asking.  Using OPM to get rich is a sweet deal if you can get it.

Like a Madoff scheme, it "made off" with lots of dough.

A DIFFERENT SPIRIT

There is a different spirit moving across our land.
It's a spirit of comparison and strife and envy...

...and violence.

A spirit that exalts the created rather than the Creator.

A spirit of corruption in high places.

A spirit of power that is rottenness toward the young.

Unspeakable rottenness.

And harmful toward the most innocent.

Light of the World, we beg You to shine in these dark places.  How we need your goodness.  

Spirit, make us protectors of the weak...

God lovers...

responsive to authority...

and mindful of our divinely-assigned purposes.

Father, we so look forward to the day 

when motives will be PURE.

The lion and lamb will both have new natures

 and our nature-of-grace won't have to contend.

Lord, we just want you to know 

that we won't miss that urge to be powerful.

Or rich.

Or...first.

The new Jerusalem will dazzle the eyegate 

with all those fiery jewels and colors.

But the absence of rottenness 

may be the most dazzling perk of all.

Maranatha, Lord!

AUTHENTICATE!

 Color me crestfallen this morning because I really like everything Herman Cain SAYS he stands for.  Yesterday I posted Cain's debate in TX with Gingrich...and wrote the word "electrified".  Today that has turned to a sour burp.

I WANT HERMAN CAIN TO BE THE REAL DEAL.  How can Americans know the truth in a "he said/she said" gossipfest?  Is Mr. Cain a predator or innocently accused?

You know what Herman Cain needs? Authenticating.  Perhaps he should release the National Restaurant Association's report that vindicated him.

Here's a different authentication.  Thomas and the disciples are checking out what Jesus has said.

That's just ONE of the things I appreciate about the Lord.  God authenticated what His Prophet said. Jesus' walk/talk aligned.  Boy, are we thirsty for authentication in our day!

When Jesus walked across the Promised Land, He proclaimed the good news.  Then He authenticated His credentials with signs and miracles.  That helps my confidence in what He says...and also in His uniqueness.  No other religious leader authenticated what he said.  Neither Joseph Smith nor Mohammed nor any other figure came back from the dead.  And that's not all.

Take Isaiah 40.22.  The Holy Spirit overshadowed Isaiah to cause him to write "it is He (God) who sits above the vault (sphere) of the earth".  Why is that 2,500 year-old-verse so inspiring?  In Isaiah's day, scientists thought the earth was flat and held up by three elephants.  I can just imagine Isaiah obediently putting down words while his human nature was shouting "do you know how crazy this is?"

Isaiah's verse is just one example of Scripture breaking new ground.  But the BIGGEST reason I put my confidence in what the Bible says...is because there were so many prophecies of Jesus that came true.  Coincidence?  Maybe one or even two would be a coincidence.  But how can the fulfillment of dozens be explained?  (*See below)

Then there are hundreds of prophesies that are future to us about Jesus' return.  If He got the first bunch right, I'm willing to trust Him for the second bunch.

Finally, Jesus' Messianic miracles are powerful persuaders.  Israel had been told to watch for certain things that would define their Messiah.  That's how they would recognize Him...if He did four specific things that only God could do.

HEALING THE LEPER
Jesus cleansed a man of this incurable disease of leprosy in Luke 5.  Then He told the leper not to tell a soul, but to go straight to show himself to the priests.  Their response?  They called Jesus a blasphemer.

CASTING OUT THE DEMON FROM A DUMB MAN
To do a Jewish exorcism you had to first establish communication (identify the demon's name).  Because the afflicted was dumb, his demon was unexorcisible by human means.  When we read in Matthew 12 and Mark 9 about Jesus casting out the demon, the multitudes were amazed.  But the response of the religious leaders?  They say Jesus is demon-possessed.

HEALING CONGENITAL BLINDNESS
In John 9, Jesus healed a man born blind.  Who better to give sight than the Light of the world?  The teachers of the law responded  "you are healing on the Sabbath".  Then they added "you are born in sin and now you try to teach us?  Get out!"

RAISING THE DEAD
When Jesus raised Lazarus (John 11), the multitudes believed.  But when the Pharisees found out, they convened the Sanhedrin and decided to bring Rome in to deal with the situation because "it was better for one man to die for the nation".

Jesus met the Messiah requirements and the religious leaders (above all people) should have known.  But they were not interested in authentication.  They already had their minds made up.

It is no different in our day.  Check out the bodacious claims below that our Bible makes about Jesus.  Remember they were hundreds of years before He came.  And then watch Him fulfill what was written.  It is great vetting when your walk and talk match.  I still don't know about Herman Cain, but all my confidence is in the Good Book and the One who authenticates me.





*OT PROPHECY and NT FULFILLMENT

Micah 5.2 predicted Jesus would be born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2.1, Luke 2.4)

 Zechariah 11.12,13 said He would be sold for thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26.14-15, 27.8-10)

Psalm 41.9 described His betrayal by a friend (Matthew 26.49-54)

Psalm 27.12 and 35.11 talk of Jesus being accused by false witnesses (Matthew 26.59-60)

Zechariah 13.7 shows He's forsaken by disciples (Matthew 26.56, Mark 14.49-50)

Humiliated and spit upon in Isaiah 50.6,7 and 53.4 (Matthew 27.28-30)

Wounded and bruised in Isaiah 53.5 (Matthew 27.26, Mark 15.19)

Silent before accusers in Isaiah 53.7, 9b (Matthew 27.12 and 14, 1Peter 2.22-24)

Hands and feet pierced in Psalm 22.16 (Luke 23.33, John 20.25-27)

Crucified with thieves in Isaiah 53.12  (Mark 15.27, Luke 22.37)

Prayed for persecutors in Isaiah 53.12 (Luke 23.34)

Reviled, rebuked, mocked in Psalm 22.6-8 and 109.25 (Matthew 27.39-44, Mark 15.29-30)

People were astonished and stared in Psalm 22.17 (Luke 23.35)

Clothing divided and lots cast in Psalm 22.18 (Matthew 27.35, John 19.23-24)

Cried out in anguish in Psalm 22.1 (Matthew 27.46, Mark 15.34)

Gall and vinegar given in Psalm 69.21 (John 19.28-30)

Friends stood afar off in Psalm 38.11 (Luke 23.49)

Bones not broken in Psalm 34.20 and 22.14 and Exodus 12.46 and Numbers 9.12 (John 19.33 and 36)

Side pierced in Zechariah 12.10 (John 19.34-37)

Darkness came over the land when He died in Amos 8.9 (Matthew 27.45)

Committed Himself to God in Psalm 31.5 (Luke 23.46)

Buried in tomb of a rich man in Isaiah 53.9 (Matthew 27.57-60)