Friday, February 27, 2009
Dear Fellow Travelers,
These are Paul’s words: “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses” (Acts 13:38 NASB). In my opinion, this is a pretty good deal—forgiveness AND freedom!
By the time Paul preached this sermon, the Jews were thoroughly imprisoned to the Law of Moses, and not just to the Law of Moses, but (and especially) to all of the Pharisaical interpretations of that Law. Long before he preached this sermon, the Ten Commandments, which no one could obey in the first place, had been increased to some 79 very large volumes of laws. Sadly, the Jews were convinced that, in order to please God, they had to obey these laws, not to mention, that the penalty for disobedience was rather severe—death by stoning [If you happen to see the woman who was caught in adultery, ask her, as she will vouch for me!]. In the wildest stretches of my imagination, I cannot imagine that anyone really enjoyed this kind of lifestyle, with the exception of the narcissistic Pharisees, who enjoyed “lording it over” their subjects and, thus, controlling and destroying their lives.
The response to this portion of Paul’s sermon is quite remarkable: “ . . . the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath . . . and the next Sabbath nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of God” (Acts 13:42, 44 NASB). Of course, the Pharisees were not too happy about what they were seeing and hearing, so they began to contradict what Paul was saying (see vs. 45). Interestingly, it was at this point that Paul & Barnabas left the Jews and took this good news to the Gentiles.
As I write these words, I am keenly aware that we (you and I) are watching, as the US Government takes more and more control over our lives. Oh, the politicians always have some lame answer, but the truth is, we are losing our freedom—fast! We already have more laws than the Jews ever thought about having (the tax code far exceeds all of the Jewish laws!) and, ironically, we have more people incarcerated than we have prisons to house them. In other words, the laws are giving disobedience power. Imagine that!
As I see it, we are well on way to socialized medicine. The doctors will all be from India or Iran, but at least everyone will have affordable health care. Yea, right! It will be affordable because those of us who pay taxes will be paying the bill, and this means that there will be fewer and fewer of us, who pay taxes, because there will be no reward for working. Not to worry, however, because Uncle Sam will figure out a way to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor; you can count on that! The one thing our Uncle will not figure out, however, is this: how to maintain quality health care! I seriously doubt that many are going to want to go through the rigors of medical school, internship, and residency, in order to have some half-witted government appointed jerk telling him/her how to practice, on whom to practice, and how much they will be paid to practice. To be sure, not many will be willing to take this on for a meager $60,000 or $70,000 per year.
I might add, that although our educational system has gone down the tubes, there is a “fix” for it—let’s socialize it, too! Let us give the US Government, and the State government, for that matter, the power to control education, and all will be well. Yea, right! Virtually every decision any local school board makes is already tied to whether or not making it will decrease or increase funds from either or both levels of government. I wonder if ANY decision is ever made based upon what is best for the children in the classrooms. Oh, I forgot: No Child Left Behind solved all of our educational problems!! (my tongue is in my cheek!).
As some of you know, I am old enough (and then some) to be drawing my Social Security benefits, and I am doing just that. But do you know what I did before I was paid the first penny of those benefits? I paid into the system for almost 50 years, and for all of those 50 years, with few exceptions, I paid both the employee’s and the employer’s portion. Do you know what the US Government did? Without my permission, it decided to use most of the monies in this fund for OTHER things, and in my opinion the people who made those decisions are guilty of a much worse crime than Bernard Madoff, and should be jailed and made to pay every penny back into the fund, with proper interest. But don’t worry about it because the US Government will fix this problem, too, with, well I think you know how it will fix it! The sad truth is this: many of you will never see one dime of the money you have so graciously put into this system, because I am drawing out what you are putting in! By the way—THANKS!
By the way (again), I am 67 years old, which means that, as of February 15, 2009, I had lived a mere 2,115,244,890 (two billion, one hundred fifteen million, two hundred forty-four thousand, eight hundred and ninety) seconds. It takes 31,688 YEARS to use 1 trillion seconds! How long will it take to retire a 2 trillion dollar debt, at the rate of $1 per second? Go figure! But hurry because time is of the essence!
Let me stop this and, simply, say, “I choose freedom over tyranny!” Let it go on the record!
“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1 NASB). Please do not be deceived! We are relinquishing our freedom, one step at a time, and from my vantage point, we don’t have many steps left. I am really glad I know Who is in charge!
