Lyle's Blog

Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.

My wife and I have been married 41 years at this writing and now I reflect on how precious those years have been. I chose her but she also chose me. We’ve become one flesh over these many years. She knows what I think; I know what she thinks and it matters to us.

A man is supposed to leave his father and mother. That doesn’t mean he forgets them or doesn’t attend to their needs or doesn’t love them. It simply means when push comes to shove, his wife can depend on him being unquestionably loyal to her. That is the recipe for becoming one flesh.

My mother told me that once I married my sweetheart, then I should forget about her. No, she still wanted me to care about her but she wanted me to put my wife first. Why? Because that didn’t happen to her. I don’t want to diminish my father because he was a gentle man, someone I loved.

But for whatever reason he didn’t cleave to my mother; yes, he was faithful but he never regarded her as his equal, his partner. Mom was never consulted on anything. You could say he cared about her, but they never had that spiritual closeness because he never cared what she thinks. He never thought how his decisions would effect her or their family.

Most men have trouble with cleaving to their wives. According to the Bible, it’s his job. The wife doesn’t do that. That’s not her job. It’s the job of the husband to put her above his father and mother and as the apostle Paul said, give himself totally to her. A wife needs to know she is without a doubt number one, that she is on his mind all of the time. Her welfare, her future, their children’s future, he takes most seriously.

I think the problem so many of us husbands have is that we live with an attitude that things just happen. We don’t ponder outcomes too much; we become yes men or no men. If life just happens, we have no responsibility for the end result. God doesn’t see it that way. To whom much is given, much is required. When you’re single you’ve got nothing. When you marry and possibly have children, you’ve been give a lot. A lot is required of you. You give up all that selfish wasting of time in your youth. God expects you to cleave to your wife and raise up your children in the way they should go.

So you need to know the way and engage your family in the pursuit of knowing Christ. If you don’t know it, you can’t teach it.

Some may say their spouse isn’t perfect, they’re a little hard to love some days. That may or may not be but that doesn’t release us from the obligation to cleave to our wives It’s for richer or poorer, good times and bad, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. So many can’t do that. It’s pretty obvious by the divorce rated that marriage vows for many are like New Year’s resolution, full of good intentions but no real commitment. They fail and maybe next time they’ll get it right. Not going to happen; there’s no love there.

I love my wife. I want to make sure she’s all right. I want her to feel like her life matters and that it was well spent with me. But it just doesn’t happen. Our lives are directed by the Word of God. We are not our own; we have been bought with the blood of Christ.

We’re not perfect. There are things about each other that could use changing. We know this. It’s OK. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love never fails. Love is a decision to do the right thing and understanding what’s right comes from God’s Word. What we’re after is making God’s will our will. Then what either one of us wants pales in comparison to our pleasing Christ. One day my wife and I will be the bride of Christ and Christ will vow to us never to leave us, never to forsake us, even to the very end of the world. That is our mandate, to love our wives, never leave them, never forsake them right till death do us part.

Sometimes those wrongs plague our lives and we need to forgive. Desmond Tutu said a very simple thing but is very profound. “Without forgiveness there is no future”. That is true for a country and that is true for a marriage. God gave us that example. He sacrificed Christ so we could be forgiven. He wants to forgive and forget; we should do the same.

As we approach the apocalypse those who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture of the church are getting anxious and are pretty sure Christ could return any day. The Bible warns us that setting dates is impossible as Christ himself said he didn’t know. We forget that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; he is not God himself.

That to many may seem blasphemous but the reality is that Jesus Christ lowered himself to becoming flesh so that we could be saved from the wrath of God. Christ was a Holy Spirit filled man. He knew the Father because he fellowshipped with God all the time. He had a natural connection with his father but came to earth for that one purpose. Men had sinned and to pay for that sin a man had to die. God requires blood to cover sin. The blood of Jesus Christ was precious blood and the value of it was above price.

It was more valuable than anything else. When it was spent, there wasn’t anything it couldn’t pay for. That is why if the blood of Christ is rejected there is nothing more that can be paid for the removal of your sin.

We hope for the rapture, for God getting us out of this messy place we live. We tried to make America heaven on earth but it wasn’t. It is filled with a people who are now far from God. Some give God lip service but for the most part, God’s commandments are ignored and following Christ is offered as one of many options in an enlightened world.

The truth is, Christ has always been accepted by a peculiar people. Not many truly follow Christ and there are so many variances it’s hard to say which one is “real”. So the church makes war on itself on a regular basis and most usually devolves into some effort to achieve solutions to all the ills of men instead of the worship of God.

As we waste so much time trying to figure out how to survive a culture that’s gone mad, we realize that maybe God isn’t going to rapture us quite as fast as we thought. Lot was “raptured” at the last minute. It wasn’t till the rain started falling that Noah was told to close the door. I’m kinda thinking that it’s going to get a whole lot uglier before God raptures his church and that is why I’m thinking more of a post tribulation or close to it.

Remembering that there will be silence in heaven for the space of a half an hour and it is then all hell breaks loose, perhaps it is at that point the rapture takes place. Remember, it is at the end that God pours out his wrath on the world. During the tribulation it is Satan pouring his wrath out on the world.

We are clearly told it is an hour when we think not, that Christ will return. Jesus even wondered if there would be faith when he returns. Lots of people are pretty sure he’s going to come and save us from the tribulation but what he said was, he will save us from the wrath to come. Christ saves us from the wrath of God and not the wrath of man.

Silence in heaven, deathly quiet, fear is everywhere and the whole world, after living through those last three and a half years, are well aware something is about to happen. I don’t want to be among those who propose that the Lord tarries, but Oh Lord, what a morning, when the stars begin to fall.

That’s the title of a song by Kiefer Sutherland which seems to reflect his way of life. Drinking has pretty much been the crutch he’s leaned on his whole life. This isn’t about him; he’s just one of a vast army of drunks. He’s been successful in everything it would appear except in relationships.

Those words “not enough whiskey” are very true. There’s just never enough to solve your problems, to make people listen, to cover up your unwillingness to change. The song describes the typical scenario. Girl leaves boy, he knows she’s not coming back because she’s already found someone new. It’s an old story that repeats throughout the ages. It’s hard for the drunk to understand why people who have a reason to live don’t want them around.

It’s an addiction of course. Science insists that everything we do has a “chemical” reason. I’m not going to argue with that. Sin after all is an inherited curse. But in the end we are responsible for our succumbing to its power. Which ever sin we get involved in, we begin to like it. Sin itself is addicting. We do what we do because we’re in bondage to our flesh. We like being captains of our own destiny.

I’m sure we’ve all known those whose whole life along with those they “love” have been ruined by drinking. There was that first girl that left because of their drinking. That hurt, so they drank too much. For a few hours, nothing matters. Nothing matters to a drunk. Oh they may say it does; sincerity may be in their vocabulary but they have no concept of what it is. Everything they do has to have a drink added to it. Eventually it’s just drink and nothing else is necessary. We witness it over and over again. Eventually the things they did fall away and are lost forever and drinking stands alone as the god of your life.

Women too suffer from alcohol addiction but I do believe most of the time they don’t have the luxury of time that they can devote to it. Women bear children, involved in the raising of kids and making sure a house is a home. Our present culture seems to be on a “woke” binge what with women deciding that being self indulgent like men is a deserved and better way to live. So alcoholism and drug addiction have become mainstream in our culture.

So those words are ever true, there’s not enough whiskey, there’s not enough of anything to make it all, all right as the song says. There never is. The bottle always ends up empty just like life winds up empty.

The U.S. is a society of pasteurized and homogenized citizens. Trump said we would never be a socialist country but we have been for quite a while, cradle to grave government care with a capitalist bent. I say all that to paint a backdrop for the spectacle that is Washington D.C.

Elizabeth Neumann is another elitist who like so many is very smart and can pontificate to us lessors their profound insight on why the rest of us are so screwed up. She of course is well qualified because she has lived the life of us Bible thumping, gun hugging deplorables and therefore knows the remedies to be applied by the merciless state.

She, like everyone else in Washington, only sees us as they fly over at 30,000 feet. They still have good jobs, healthcare, and an apparent future. We’ve watched horrified as our cities were burned and looted by BLM and Antifa, and 50 people murdered and 700 policemen injured by these thugs and nothing was done to stop them. And we also noticed that the “protestors” don’t have to wear masks because 1200 doctors put out a notice stating the protestors were just too important to wear masks.

Speaking of masks, we’re supposed to wear them all the time for a virus that is no more deadly than the flu and yes we’ve noticed that nobody dies of anything else anymore but the dreaded covid virus. And for this we haven’t been allowed to be with our own mother while she dies in the hospital. And no, we can’t have any other maladies checked out because they have to leave those empty beds open for covid. And don’t think we don’t know how the hospital is rewarded for calling everything covid.

The only one who could have a funeral was a celebrated criminal. Yes we noticed the only black lives that matter are black criminals, not 13 black children killed by black men in Chicago. It’s all leftist BS.

And did I mention that we saw a lone man paddle boarding in the ocean arrested for doing so against government nonsensical orders? Or a hairdresser arrested and fined for trying to work to support her family. Let’s not even talk about Governor Gruesome partying maskless with healthcare officials.

How about labeling anyone white as racist………..and the list goes on and on. Is it any wonder that a few people are upset? Yes, those on the fringe got carried away (kind of like the rioters this summer) but it was a paltry few out of 700,000 people. On top of that there wasn’t 2 billion dollars damage done. Sounds like a bargain.

My daughter has a friend whose five-year-old is on suicide watch. Suicide watch. We are losing a generation of children, the middle class emaciated, and nobody gives a damn. Excuse me if I’m not impressed with the wisdom of our betters who trade our birthright for a bowl of porridge.

I woke up early; 3:30. I listened to a sermon on my Ipod which is my common practice when I wake early. The sermon was on the power of the tongue. What we say tends to be what we get. We don’t think much of the impact of our words on other people and even ourselves.

We say things we think we believe, but is there any proof we’re sincere? Much of what we say is an excuse for doing nothing. Oh, we have our routines and there may be nothing “wrong” with what we’re doing, but are we doing anything that has eternal weight?

1 John 9:4 I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work.

So who is it that sent us and where did He send us? I’d venture to say we’re to go out the door and work for the Lord. But what is this work He’s sent us to do? Why was Christ sent to this world but to find and save that which is lost. All of our actions and motives are but for one thing, finding the lost and offering them salvation.

I’ve noticed lately the night is coming, my death is drawing near. I’m weaker and less sure of myself. All those things I’ve procrastinated about, many of them can’t be done. Opportunity comes and if not taken, slips away. People move away, we move away, they die and we don’t have another chance to say what we should have said.

We don’t pray much because we don’t believe much. We want to be good, honest, kind and like to hang around others who are the same. It’s hard to be so kind to those who hate us, don’t love God,, and may be hostile to Christ. Jesus said to love your enemies, treat them well, be like Christ to them.

Jesus had compassion on the hurting, but he wasn’t some kind of Social Justice Warrior. He didn’t come to solve the social ills of the world by doing “good” things. No, he came to save them from their sins. All of our problems stem from having hearts of stone; we need hearts of flesh so we can remember that we’re merely sinners saved by grace and those we struggle with are perishing. We are their lifeline to salvation. If we don’t look past their sin, we can’t pull them into the boat.

I guess it’s hard for those who have always been good. When you’re squeaky clean it’s hard to understand the dirty among us. When ever I feel I’m pretty good, I just have to remember when I was pulled out of the miry clay and saw my sin and its destruction for what it was. I thank God for saving me from the power and penalty of sin.

Our work is to speak words of life, be continually aware of opportunity save those that are lost. Times a-wastn’. I’m finding that night makes a sudden appearance. I didn’t really think about it much. I always thought there would be tomorrow. There’s not.