July/August/September 2009
Dear ones,
These are uniquely perilous times. We are in a war for the very survival of Christian civilization, both from militant anti-Christ forces within (those who hate God, His Word, and relentlessly attack traditional standards of decency), and from fanatical followers of Islam from without, committed to the annihilation of Christians and Jews. And, to make the situation much more threatening, the present administration seems determined to give assistance and encouragement to both. We need to pray daily, keep ourselves informed and, when possible, get involved.
QUESTIONS ABOUT MY NEW BOOK
People continue to call and write with questions about my new book, a Civil War history, “Jack Hinson’s One-Man War“ (Pelican Publishing Co). It is a true story of a remarkable man and his family, swept up into the tragedy of war. It is a story of cruelty, kindness, selfless bravery, vengeance and the high cost of vengeance. It is fact, the result of 15 years of research and writing; but it reads like fiction. We (this ministry) cannot sell the book, but it is available at all bookstores. I urge you to buy it at a local bookstore, for they need your business. Otherwise, all the retail chains (Books a Million, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Sams Clubs, etc) have it, as well as Amazon.com. If you buy one, and not at one of my book events, and you want it inscribed, just mail it to the office, I will gladly inscribe it and mail it back to you.
MY NEW BOOK VS. THE MINISTRY
At times I am conflicted about my secular activities, especially my new book and my other research and writing of military history and my involvement in veterans’ groups. My primary calling, after all, is to this ministry of Christian teaching and writing. Since the release of my new book this is particularly true because I have to expend so much time and energy traveling to book signings and the related lectures. And yet, in all my veterans’ groups I am always “the duty Christian”; they call on me for prayer; and I continue to find, at these secular events, opportunities to share the gospel; I call them “divine appointments.” Only two days ago I was at a secular breakfast meeting to speak about my book and, in the process, was moved to give a brief testimony as to how I met the Lord. I didn’t know it, but there was at least one person there who needed to hear it. The work load is difficult as I continue trying to keep up with the work of the ministry, my other responsibilities, and travel to book events, sometimes more than one a week; yet I almost always find a way to speak about the Lord to people who come to have their books autographed. Please pray that I can keep up physically with the schedule, and that the Lord continues to set up divine appointments.
OBAMA RESTORES ABORTION FUNDING TO THE UN
The Obama State Department has announced that it will restore funding ($50 Million annually) to the UN Population Fund (UNPFA). The Bush administration has consistently refused to fund this UN activity because of its policy of supporting forced abortions and forced sterilization. In some despotic countries, such as Communist China, women are not only forced to undergo abortion, but are also surgically rendered sterile against their will. But now we have a new president, and death and despotism definitely have a friend in the White House. (BP)
PLANNED PARENTHOOD PROSPERS
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the government-supported abortion giant, is the number one killer of helpless, innocent babies in the land, and business is good. Its income in the past year was $1.04 Billion, of which $346.9 Million was provided by government grants and contracts. In simpler terms this means that you and I, with our taxes, provide more than 1/3 of the income of PPFA. According to its latest annual report, PPFA performed 305,000 abortions from July 2007 through June 2008 (the latest year for which there is a report). During the same year PPFA made fewer than 5,000 referrals to adoption agencies. Only 0.02% of the women were referred to adoption agencies; this means that for every 10,000 women and girls who went into their clinics, 9,998 had their babies aborted, and 2 (that’s right—two women) were referred to adoption agencies. (BP/CitizenLink.org)
NOTE: In this regard, you may want to re-read the article in the previous issue about Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, and Hillary Clinton’s praise of her.
BUT THERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT PLANNED PARENTHOOD
There is at least a little good news about Planned Parenthood. The nation’s leading baby killer is supported not just by federal taxes but also by state taxes. The Tennessee Legislature has voted to cease funding the Tennessee branch of PPFA with $1.1 Million annually. The vote was 69-22 in the House and 25-7 in the Senate. (PWB)
FREE BEER AT CHURCH???
As dead churches continue to lose membership and revenues, their leaders refuse to see that the reason is that they have abandoned the truth of the Bible. Because of this they have no life-changing truth to offer, no solutions to life’s problems, and people are increasingly aware that they are wasting their time and money in such churches. Many such church leaders, refusing to accept the reality of the cause, try to attract people with “seeker-friendly” gimmicks. St. Steven’s Church in Barbourne, Worcester, England may be the current leader in the frantic search for something (besides the simple gospel) that works. Free beer was given to men who attended St Steven’s as “an alternative blessing” for Fathers’ Day. The Right Reverend John Inge, Bishop of Worcester, said that giving beer to men who attend is “a practical way to attract more men.” (Telegraph.co.uk/PWB)
OBAMA DECLARES JUNE TO BE “LGBT PRIDE MONTH”
The president has proudly declared June to be “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.” At a “Gay Pride” celebration at the White House Obama introduced homosexual clergy, including Episcopal Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson whom the president called his “special friend.” Obama said at the celebration that he hopes to persuade all Americans to accept homosexuality. (ONN/AP, et al)
PUBLIC SCHOOL PROVIDES “GAY” WEBSITE
The San Francisco Unified School District has launched a homosexual (“lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning”) website for its elementary schools, including kindergartens. The site has links, directly or indirectly, to all other homosexual sites. Parents are not allowed to opt their children out of this exposure, nor is there even a requirement to notify them. Yes, I know—this is San Francisco, where you can probably get AIDS simply by breathing the air; but it could soon be coming to a public school near you. (ONN)
THE UPSIDE-DOWN FAMILY TREE AND THE END OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION
Western Civilization is dying. Culturally, it has been dying for about 200 years, as the Bible has been increasingly rejected as the standard of right and wrong and the basis of our system of law. Sacredness of marriage and the sanctity of life have gradually been abandoned. In Europe the Church, which had been for more than a thousand years the dominant influence for godliness and virtue, has become an irrelevant remnant, a shadow with very little substance. And now, that same disease of secularism, humanism and paganism has spread to the UK, US, and Canada, the last bastion of the dying culture. Simultaneously, Islam and the pagan culture of the east have flowed in to replace the flickering flame of Christianity. In many places in the UK and Europe, there are more mosques than churches; in parts of England it is forbidden to ring church bells on Sunday so as not to disturb the Muslims at prayer.
But, as Western Civilization gasps its last culturally, it is also literally dying out biologically, due to the “upside-down family tree” (4 grandparents, two parents and one grandchild). Fewer people marry, women have fewer children and, even if millions of babies were not murdered in abortion, the dropping fertility rate is a fatal condition. When a man and woman, as a national average, have less than 2.0 children, that population is dying out—not replacing itself. The math is simple. If every couple in a nation has one child, then by the next generation the population is reduced by one half. The fertility rate in the US is barely at the sustainable level of 2.1 children. In Canada, the UK and in every nation in Western Europe, the figure is below 2.0: the UK 1.7; Canada 1.5; Norway 1.8; Denmark 1.7; Sweden 1.7; Belgium 1.6; Netherlands 1.7; France 1.9. By comparison, the rate in Saudi Arabia is 6.3.
On the Fast Track to Extinction. Seventeen European nations, including Germany, Spain, Italy and Greece, are at 1.3 or less; this is the point of no return: no society in human history has ever recovered from rates this low. This means that, even if efforts are made to reverse fertility rates in these countries, in a short time they will no longer exist. There will no longer be any Germans in Germany, no Spaniards in Spain, no Italians in Italy and no Greeks in Greece. And who is most likely to replace them? The Muslims, who are already flooding into those countries, with multiple wives and 10-15 or more children per family. We are already seeing this. (WND/The UN World Population Report/The CIA World Facebook/et al)
WHATEVER BECAME OF RIGHT AND WRONG?
I recently saw a program on Fox News Channel about a high school girl who was brutally beaten by a group of other such girls, and disfigured (they cut off her hair). It was reportedly over a “boyfriend.” Several “experts” were asked what could be done to prevent such violence among teens. The usual humanist sociologist replied with a predictably vapid comment about “professional help to teach them how to control their anger.“ I wanted to scream at the TV, “No! A thousand times no! What they need, besides some serious time in jail for aggravated assault (the victim suffered serious injury to her face), is to be taught the difference between right and wrong!” Of course, it’s a little late for that when they are already high school age, with their values shaped by the violence, brutality and sex with no meaning or consequences from movies, TV, music, and the company they keep. But what we are seeing is not caused by a need for “professional help“—sessions on conflict resolution and anger control; it is caused by a failure of parents, schools and churches to teach about right and wrong.
JESUS TOUCHED PEOPLE
My granddaughter, Sarah Harris, is a working nurse at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Miss. Like many nurses in Mississippi, her auto license plate proclaims, “Nurses Touch Lives.” This is, of course, true. Except for examinations, surgery, and other procedures, many physicians read charts, write orders, and usually touch patients only during rounds—and sometimes not even then. But nurses touch the patients day and night—and thus significantly touch their lives.
It is important to touch people who are in need; Jesus did it all the time. By the time He and his few disciples descended from the “sermon on the mount,” a great multitude was following them. In the crowd there was a leper, who proclaimed that if Jesus wished, He could heal him. Jesus immediately replied, “I will [it is my desire and intention to do so]; be thou clean.” He then stretched forth his hand and touched the leper, who was instantly healed. This is remarkable, for as Jesus reached out and touched the leper, we may be sure that the rest of the crowd was pressing back, afraid of touching him, falling over one another, trying to get as far away as possible from that frightening, smelly outcast. Yes, Jesus touched the untouchable and healed him. He also touched the dead and restored them to life. He touched Peter’s mother-in-law and the fever left her. He touched little children, took them up in his lap and blessed them. Jesus, the Great Physician, touched people; He still does. My surgeon son, Jeff, says that if you have a physician who never touches you, get another physician. I think he has something there.
WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN?
The bloody holocaust of abortion continues to raise the question, when does life begin? It really isn't a mystery. Only a high school-level knowledge of biology, and a little common sense, are required in order to know that life begins at conception. An egg cell is not a person; it has only half the chromosome compliment of a person; and, once it is released from the surface of the ovary, if not fertilized, it will die in 48 hours. A sperm cell is likewise not a person, and it also has only half a person's chromosomes. Once released, if it fails to combine with an egg cell, it will die in 48 hours. However, once the egg cell merges with the sperm cell, it may live for more than 100 years! The resulting fertilized egg has the full chromosome complement of a person, it begins immediately to divide and grow, and only 18 days after conception, this tiny person has a beating heart, and blood circulating in his arteries and veins—before the mother has a chance even to miss the first period. It is obvious to the objective enquirer (and that is what scientists are supposed to be) that the new person, made in the image of God, begins to exist at conception.
The Bible also contains much evidence to confirm this fact of life, including a passage in Hosea 9:11-17. Speaking of the coming final judgment on the wicked Northern Kingdom of Israel, the prophet uses the analogy of childbirth and child rearing to make his point; and he begins with conception ("...their glory shall fly away as a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.").
Incidentally, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, says that life doesn't begin at conception, and not even at birth; she says a baby becomes a human person when taken home from the hospital. Of course, hers is a political position—not a logical one, and definitely not an honest one.
"MY PEOPLE ARE DESTROYED FOR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE."
Beginning with the first verse of Hosea Chapter 4 there is a revelation of a profound reality; it is one that underlies all of life—the life of the individual, of the family, of the local church, of denominations, and of nations. It is a description of the situation prevailing in the Northern Kingdom at the time of Hosea's writing; and, significantly, it is a description of our culture today. Self-destructive sin is destroying the people of Hosea's day with "swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery." These, and all related sinning, are bringing the kingdom to the point of terminal self-destruction. But the root cause of all this lawless, violent, behavior is explained in the first verse: "...because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land." The passage goes on to describe endless, uninterrupted, violence ("...and blood toucheth blood"). The key to all this misery is summarized in v 6: the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge of the Word of God, which they have rejected. To compound the problem, and make it virtually hopeless, the spiritual leaders have themselves rejected the truth of God, and are setting a sinful example for the people ("like people like priest").
And so, the pathological wellspring, from which flows all of this self-destructive sin, is the lack of knowledge of the rejected Word of God, led by the priesthood. (4:1-11)
IN MEXICO, EMIGRATION TOPS DEATH
According to the Mexican Census Bureau, Mexico loses more citizens by emigration to the USA than it loses to death. Between the years 2000 and 2005, Mexico lost an average of 577,000 citizens who immigrated to the U.S. per year, while losses to death averaged 495,000. Of those who immigrated to the U.S. in that period, 78 percent crossed the border illegally. (AP/BP)
PROOF OF OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE THAT CANNOT BE ERASED
Have you noticed how many cities and towns in our nation have names taken from the Bible? They are everywhere, large and small, from Providence to Sacramento, from Saint Paul to San Antonio. Filling the nation are rural communities named for the churches at their centers (Hebron, Bethel, Pisgah, Shiloh, Bethany, Gethsemane, Emmaus, Olivet, Mt. Tabor, etc). Did this just happen? Of course not! It is clear evidence that our founders, from Jamestown to Plymouth, and the westward-moving pioneers who followed them, were steeped in the Bible and Church history, and these held the central place in their minds, affecting everything they did, including the choice of place names. As the ACLU and other God-haters work tirelessly to re-write our history and rob us of our Christian heritage, let us remind ourselves of this indisputable evidence. If our culture should perish in its own sinful self-destruction, and archeologists should sift through the records a thousand years later, they would examine place names and quickly conclude that “Those Americans clearly held one source above all others and made it central in all that they did, and that source was the Bible.” Think on this.
SAFER TO BE HEROD’S PIG THAN HIS SON
In the 1st Century BC the Herodian family was installed by the Romans as Israel’s royal family. The Herods were Edomites (descended from Esau), not Jews; but before the Romans assumed control over Israel, the Herods had been forced to accept Judaism. They were one of the most dysfunctional families in human history; and King Herod the Great, who was king at the time of the birth of Jesus, was unquestionably insane; he was also extremely cruel. He is best remembered for ordering “the slaughter of the innocents”—the murder of all children below age 2 within 10 miles of Bethlehem. But he also ordered the murder of one of his wives and 3 of his sons. When Augustus Caesar, who was familiar with Herod’s cruelty, heard that he had ordered the murder of the third son, he wryly observed, “It is safer to be Herod’s pig [which, under Judaism, he could not sacrifice] than to be his son.”
MILESTONES
Died 26 Nov 08 - Mrs Callista Mudd, widow of the late Lawrence Mudd, of Owensboro, Ky, both my long-time Christian friends, encouragers, and faithful supporters of this ministry.
9 June 09 - Wilbert Segebarth, in Sun Prairy, Wisc. Wilbert was a leader in his church and a generous, greatly respected, longtime resident of Dresden, Tenn.
12 June 09 - Mary Jane Watson, longtime Christian friend, member of our Sunday School class, Marty’s Circle, and Marty’s special friend. Perpetually cheerful, willing to work and encourage others, she lit up the room when she walked in.
A FINAL WORD
Treasure and use each day as if it were your last, and never give up hope; God has a limitless supply of new beginnings, and He makes beautiful things out of broken pieces.
You are precious,
(Sources: AP-Associated Press; BBC-British Broadcasting Corp.; BP-Baptist Press; Fox (Fox News); FOF-Focus on the Family; FRC-Family Research Council; HC-History Channel; IMG-Israel My Glory; JP-Jerusalem Post; LAT-L.A. Times; NM NewsMax.com; NW-Newsweek; NYP-New York Post; NYT-New York Times; ONN-OneNewsNow; PWB-Pastors' Weekly Briefing; USAT-USA Today; VOM-Voice of Martyrs; W-World Magazine; WND-World Net Daily; and WT-Washington Times.)