a scary world

You will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. (Matthew 24:6 NLT)

It is a rough world, that is a fact. And it can be scary, especially when you see the influence of Christianity that has been so strong in America waning.

We have gotten so used to Christianity being dominant in our culture that when we see it going away, it is a bit frightening.

And it is frightening to our culture, too, even though they do not recognize it.

I have seen two violent altercations in a neighborhood McDonald’s on the news and YouTube lately. A group of teenagers beat up somebody else for some reason.

That seems to be symptomatic and representative of our culture at the same time. If you read the news much, you see incident after incident like that happening.

It is easy to say, God is gone! We are doomed!

But he isn’t and we are not. It is just that our culture no longer polices itself the way it used to. God is still here and he is still in charge. However, when people want to do what they want to do, he will allow it.

All we can do is to preach him and teach him and, as one old preacher said, if necessary use words. We can only live in such a way that two things happen. One is that people see his love and power in our lives and two, we put to shame those who do wrong.

Now admittedly, the kids who did these things are not really sorry. They are sorry they got caught and that everybody saw them, but on the other hand, they are also glad everybody saw them. It gave them a notoriety they could never have achieved in their miserable little lives otherwise.

Andy Warhol said that sooner or later, everybody gets their fifteen minutes of fame. Theirs is now. It will be gone and life will continue.

But these things will continue to happen and God will still be here.

Like Jesus said Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Stuff is going to happen, Jesus says, but it is because that is the way people do. It is human nature. And when God is taken out of the equation, human nature rules. When it rules, things are bad.

But God is still in charge. And he will triumph in the end.

carry a book

I was just in the doctor’s office waiting with Ella. I forgot my book and was faced with an interminable wait with nothing to read but old doctor’s office magazines. And this doctor’s office had lousy magazines anyway. I usually keep a book in the van, but not today. Nooo.

So there was either Golf Digest, or In Style Magazine Special. It looked about half the width of the phone book.

So I picked it up. Women’s style magazine magazines, for that matter any style magazines leave me wanting. But the need to read is greater than all my fears, so I end up reading some weird things.

Two things struck me.

First was the fact that 2/3 of the clothes look stupid. I keep remembering that they are designed by men who do not like women to begin with so it is almost as if they are trying their level best to make them look like fools.

And they are winning. I buy all of Ella’s clothes. If left to her, she would still be wearing theold mini smock tops she wore in the early 70’s. she admits that she has no ability to pick out clothes. I, on the other hand, know what looks good on her and am adventurous and get her to try new looks that she ends up liking.

I promised her long ago that I would never wittingly give her anything that looks foolish on her and will tell her in a New York minute (whatever that is) if it doesn’t look good, no matter how badly she wants it.

But it is getting harder and harder to find stuff that looks good on the average middle-aged woman. If it is not junk, it is real close to it. Low necks, clingy fabrics, tight fits – all death knells to the average woman’s style.

The second thing I noticed was that many of the advertisements looked more like p0rn than what used to pass for p0rn when I was young.

I remember the first “dirty picture” I ever saw. It was of Brigitte Bardot in the early 60’s in Freeport, TX, at the news stand on the south side of the town square. I am sorry, I cannot remember what I was wearing that day, but probably jeans and a colored t shirt. That was I wore most of the time.

But that is how much it sticks in my head. Miss Bardot was wearing a pair of jeans and a jean jacket unbuttoned and open in front. The advertisement I saw for BeBe clothes while ago was more graphic than that. It was on the absolute edge of what would be allowed by the FCC in a fashion magazine. In fact there were four of them, but the last was like the Bardot picture except that she had no pants on and a hand covering her crotch.

Now, you say, well, for a preacher you sure remember all that stuff well. That is ugly of you to say so, but yes, I do. Although 60 years old, I am a man. And one with testosterone running through my body. And it caught me by surprise. That always makes it stronger.

I wrote a few months back about looking for Easter clipart online and coming across one that when I clicked on it was a girl in yellow boots on a pole. What startled me was that the address said Easter-clip-art at the top. I mentioned then that you just plain have to be careful. As I got to looking at the address, it was a .ne site. That is the Netherlands and a lot of garbage comes from there. So now, I look at the site in Google and if it even looks half-way suspicious, I leave it alone.

The first time that happened was when I was looking online for a copy of the Thompson Chain Reference, the lazy preacher’s friend. I clicked on a promising one and it was a graphic homosexual site. Whack went the back button, but what is seen cannot easily be unseen eve almost 10 years later.

The point to all this. Carry a book with you go with your wife to the doctor’s office. And, as Jesus himself said, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16). You remember that he was living in a world dominated by the Roman Empire, a corrupt society. As he said in essence, be in the world but not of the world. You gotta hang around with stupid, but you do not have to be stupid.