Lyle's Blog

Two thousand years is a long time, at least from our perspective; after all we’re “lucky” if we live a hundred years. So twenty hundred year lifetimes back to back might as well be eternity. If Christ came to save us why hasn’t he returned like he promised? When He created the universe, the earth, its furnishings, and lastly us,; He knew the beginning from the end.

God was perfect; there is none to question His authority, justice, and mercy. This is His creation and scripture tells us that all things were created by Him and for His pleasure. If I were God I might choose to do things differently, but like all men I am deeply flawed and this world would have self-destructed long ago if I were at the helm. God in His kindness and mercy has given man plenty of time; over and over men have chosen their way and we behold the destruction of our choices every day. That is because we are slaves to sin, we can’t help ourselves, and that’s why we need a savior.

We are born dead in our trespasses, our sin controls us, our nature determines our hopeless state. But two thousand years ago Christ came to free us from the power and penalty of sin. We need to be born again because our bodies are alive but our spirits are dead. God longs to communicate with us and that is accomplished only in the spirit. He wants to occupy our hearts, to be closer than a brother. He loves us and more than anything else wants us to love Him.

This planet has rejected Him and being the creator of it all He has every right to destroy it. But He loved us and love is a decision to do the right thing. Being a loving and merciful God, He provided a way that we could be redeemed. And who could pay the price for that redemption but God himself? So in the frailty of a baby, presented to the poorest of men, he presented His sacrifice to Himself. If man would accept His sacrifice as payment for their personal sin, God would forgive them and accept them as His children. We have a choice to make; will we pay for our sin ourselves or allow Christ to stand in our place?

I pray you have chosen the latter. That is the only thing that can put the merry in Christmas. I praise God for saving this wretched man from bondage and letting me bask in the wonders of his grace. Merry Christmas and may you be blessed by Him this coming year.

Winston: ? – 1984 A dreary life ends, apathy, complacency, a worthless expenditure of time, born of parents who took no stand, spineless concubines of the state, succored on the government handouts, molded with their children in cookie shapes, soulless remnants of a glorious free land forever banished to history, the price paid for their squandered inheritance ridiculed and disdained. Do we really want to be Winston? Is there no fight in us? The few will fight, suffer and be hated for standing by the helpless fools who trust in the promise of the politician’s hopeless change. Do the people ruling us really have our best interests at heart? Do “one size fits all” laws really work for men that breathe free air? Aren’t we all cloaked in the wishful dreams of politicians who pander to the lusts of evil constituents? We are no longer on the slippery slope; we have arrived at the bottom of the hill, flying off the cliff, nervous about landing in the dark canyon below.

Years ago I pulled a month of guard duty in the Army. Being a good guard is hard work, at least for me. No it’s not physical work; it’s mental. Staying alert was difficult. Staring out into oblivion is boring. These days I’m watching current events; guarding your future is anything but boring. Life is changing at a continually more rapid pace and all that was stable or predictable is not. Good is being called evil and vice-versa. That which was common sense is deemed prejudiced. So I’m watching. It’s as though we find ourselves in the “Twilight Zone”, an alien to the circumstance we thought we knew so well. Everything is known; what we assumed was private is not. Cyberspace holds our thoughts in a cloud. Do we even know what personal information the internet is spreading globally about us. We search for things on the web and we find an ad for that thing we looked for two days ago. There is a war going on and the spoils are the information each one of us hold dear. “They” know who we are, where we are, our likes, dislikes, our politics, our dreams; in short everything. With the advent of a one-payer healthcare system we will be held accountable for all our thoughts and habits. The system will dictate we further conform or lose the “privilege” of coverage. Like Winston in 1984 we will comply completely with the state’s dictates; and those that don’t will be re-educated and when graduated, find the cold comfort of a bullet in the brain. My watching continues.

Our constitution was written by men, especially one man, who understood the problem all governments had: leaders with unlimited power over the citizen’s life. It was a short, simple, to the point document quite unlike the reams of laws our present government has. It wasn’t able to be perfect as some input by monarch lovers tainted its intent, which is to allow men free rein over their property and affairs. This sprang from the various state documents such as the Fundamental Order of Connecticut which reads: “The Word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people, there should be an orderly and decent Government established according to God.” (1639) Thomas Jefferson himself stated: “Christianity is the best friend of government. Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.” Abraham Lincoln said: “It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to owe their dependence upon the over-ruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all of history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.” Our founders had suffered under the oppression of the state and the religion they support. Finally a place was to be where men could be free; but free to do what? And where did the permission to be free come from? They boldly stated: all men are created equal, that is God didn’t prefer one over the other. That one and same God endowed them with inalienable rights, which is to say rights that are common to man and not issued according to the whims of the state. Happiness could only be pursued when these rights were the individuals only and the state was the servant of the free man. Theodore Roosevelt: “Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally, and I do not mean figuratively, but literally impossible for us to figure what that loss would be if would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose all the standards by which we judge both public and private morals; all the standards towards which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves.” If we are to be free we must throw off the chains the present batch of tyrants have placed on us and resist the state in its constant striving to place us in bondage.

This week we are helping take care of four of our grandchildren, all less than four years old. Two of them are four month old twin boys. Needless to say they require continuous attention. Lack of sleep is a constant reminder that life is not yours but is spent on the babies. Now we love children and understand that love demands everything from you. Everyone knows kids are stressful, especially if they’re fussy. I often see young men and women with accidental kids. Many times the “father” is chewing on the mother about something the baby needs or does. And this baby cramps the “fathers” frivolous lifestyle. Parenting with love is difficult; without it, some type of abuse is in order. It’s been said there’s a war on women. That may be true outside of Western culture. Men have been relinquished to at best a supportive role in the family. Yes, women have been duped into becoming men’s sex toys, but being gullible is hardly the result of war. Women have been persuaded to give up their most noble creation, children, all in exchange for the passing fancy of some man. The real war is on children. We abort them by the millions, abuse them, break their family’s apart, excuse people who molest them so they can be molested again. Children are innocent victims with no voice, no weapon to defend themselves, and few men and women to stand in the gap for them. But payback is at the door. This present generation, like its parents, will be less kind, more brutish, and the older will be discarded and devalued like they were.