Lyle's Blog

John 14:12  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.  This is a verse I read/heard many times but this morning it dawned on me all that Jesus had done.   John 21:5  And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, calling upon the weather to obey Him; these are the things that through prayer, believers are to do.  We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  That alone is a daunting realization.  These are the things that we must do; it strengthens our faith in the Word of God.  But what is the greater work that we must do?  What is it we can do that Jesus couldn’t do?

Jesus had not been to the cross yet.  The old covenant was still in the place.  On the cross, Jesus paid the wages of sin.  Before the cross, the Holy Spirit hadn’t come.  The Holy Spirit came after the cross at Pentecost.  Before the cross, the disciples had witnessed the power of God, but they weren’t filled with it.

Jesus appeared to them after His resurrection and I believe it was then they realized that they were to become Christlike.  The greater work that we can now do that Jesus couldn’t, was to win souls to Christ.  Till Jesus paid the price for sin in full, it wasn’t possible to be born-again.  Healing the sick, raising the dead, and other miracles are for our benefit but have a greater purpose and that is to fill us with faith that we can’t help praise Him and tell others of His wonderful grace.

Billy Graham preached a simple “good news” message.   When I was young, his name was respected by most.  That seems not to be the case these days.  Yes, there are many that still love him, but as Christianity has become the poster child for all that’s wrong in America, anyone with the message of Jesus Christ is an enemy.  All those described in Romans chapter one are spouting off.  Hate for the sake of hate, despising the truth, they wail against anyone who holds a standard of Biblical right and wrong.

The vast progress the perversion crowd has made in the last thirty years is also a huge factor.  When people with perverted sexual orientation are given freedom to exalt their behavior to normal status and they are free to coerce our young to grow their ranks, we have evolved to becoming Sodom.  It is no wonder the opposition and hatred for the message of Christ is so strong.

So it’s the message of Jesus Christ that draws the fiery darts hurled at Graham.  His net worth of twenty-five million is equated as evidence he was in it for the money; Billy is a just a typical evangelist who fleeces the stupid sheep.  And of course, all Christians are stupid sheep.

The Bible does say it’s almost impossible for a rich man to be saved, but it also says that with God everything is possible.  I’ve known a rich man.  He died with a net worth of over one hundred million dollars.  He was a Christian man.  If you knew him up close, you were aware of his immense generosity.  He wanted no credit for what he did.  He believed all the glory belonged to God.  He said many times, “God can bless only what you give, not what you keep”.  His goal was to give away ninety percent of what he made.

There is this notion that being poor has some kind of virtue attached to it.  I can attest to the fact that being poor is not wonderful.  Being poor didn’t make me a good person.  Humbling myself to the cross of Christ gave me the ability to become holy and acceptable to God.

I don’t know how Billy accumulated so much, but I have an idea it’s not what many would think.  We live in America which is a place that you can become rich without much input on your part.  To illustrate I offer a couple examples.  One is from my own life.  When my wife and I married we started making our way through the struggles to attain the “good” life.  Back in those days, British sports cars were not worth a whole lot.  I through some lucky trade obtained a 1963 Aston Martin DB4.  It was a beautiful car but it just sat in the garage gathering dust.  So we sold it for $8000, a lot of money to a couple starting out.  However, if we had just tucked it away and kept it, it would have radically changed our retirement.  Today that car goes for seven to eight hundred thousand dollars.

My sister’s inlaws experience the same thing.  Her father-in-law had bought twenty acres for little of nothing forty years before.  When he died, it was time to sell the “estate” and give his children their due inheritance.  Not only had property gone up in value in fifty years, but it was on this property the state decided to build a connecting highway through this property.  It was worth millions.  The old man didn’t get to benefit from increase; his children did.  I suspect this is the case with Billy.  Billy doesn’t have twenty-five million dollars; he has Jesus Christ.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given you, pressed down and over-flowing.  That’s a promise to every believer.  He will exalt you in due time.  Rest in peace Billy.  Enjoy the real riches, His grace.

School shootings are becoming common.  I guess they get our attention because the victims are “innocent” young people who don’t deserve to die so young.  Somehow we ignore the thousands of killings in the U.S. every year.  This is a country filled with violence.

I remember years ago walking through a video store and noticing the huge number of movies on the rack that depicted torture, killing, horror, and other mayhem.  It was a whole section.  We’ve come a long way since kids learned to read using the Bible and they were taught the Ten Commandments.  Nope, the progressives found a better way to teach our young.  It was necessary to change their allegiance from the Creator to the Destroyer (government).

To have children fear God and believe they will be held accountable for their evil deeds, the government will be the one who will hold them accountable and determine what evil is.  There’s just one small problem; the progressive rats are evil.  There is none righteous, no not one.

Not everyone in the good old days adhered to the standards set forth in scripture, but the society at large did have in the back of their minds that there were lines they shouldn’t cross.

No, we now live in the world of me, whatever I want to do is alright.  The old fear of God has been replaced with the “I can do anything” as long as I don’t hurt anyone.  This makes for selfish people and hurting others is then an option.

What we forget is that we are examples and we should expect certain things out of our children, our neighbors, our politicians, etc.

Can we continue down this road without incurring more violence?  It doesn’t appear to have worked so far.  Violence is escalating and has become endemic in our country.  Without God peering over our shoulder, we can just keep sinning with abandon.  That’s where we’re at.  As a society, we either embrace returning to living in the fear of God or slumber on as our little sliver of civilization slips over the cliff.

Larry Edelson was, in my opinion, a brilliant student of the markets.  Larry passed away on Thursday, March 2, 2017, at 62 years of age.  The other day I used Larry’s picture for my desktop display.  My wife had put something on my screen as a joke and as I was in a hurry to get out the door, I just “grabbed” Larry’s picture as a quick replacement.  I haven’t replaced it yet.  Larry was a successful, respected member of his peers.  The picture on the screen depicts a man in a suit that looks custom tailored; there’s no doubt he’s “made” it.  To me, there seems to be something unsettled in his eyes.

He had moved back to the United States in January 2016 for health reasons.  That uneasiness of the future is somehow in his eyes.  In our minds we think, I accomplished what I did, many have acknowledged my skills, I have a reputation.  When your health starts failing, you realize you’re standing on the threshold of the unknown, a place you’re unsure of.  That’s what I feel looking at his picture.  After living almost all of your life it becomes apparent that all you’ve done will be left to someone who didn’t do anything to earn it.  If those who benefit from your efforts are righteous then I suppose it was worth it all.  I do believe you should do your best in life to provide an example for your children and give them something to build on.

But in the end, it’s really all about you and where you will spend eternity.  Why was I alive, what was my reason for being here on planet earth, these are the questions we should have asked before we started this journey called life.

These days grace is everywhere and God will be pouring His Spirit onto all flesh.  I do believe a great awakening is coming and has already started.  This is a promise of God that’s to take place before the return of Jesus Christ.  God gives grace and peace to the humble.  If one looks at how Jesus healed people, it becomes apparent that we are to become sinless.  He uses the phrase “sin no more”.  Further, He warns that if we’ve been made clean, it’s important that we stop sinning.

We need to be filled with His Spirit.  If we aren’t, our state is worse than it was before.  When we aren’t filled with the Spirit of Christ, we leave ourselves open to the spirits of Satan and then we become more miserable than before.  We are not to grieve the Holy Spirit by our continuing to sin.  If we love Him, we will follow and keep His commandments.  Spiritual growth should become evident in our lives.  If we love Him, He will be the center of our daily lives and plans.