Incomprehensible, imbecilic, loony-tunes, unconscionable, brain-gonzo: we run out of vocabulary. In Arizona this week, a six year old girl shot her gun instructor dead while he was teaching her how to fire an Uzi machine gun.
A mere six and a half years earlier this child was in her mother's womb; five days ago she was at a firing range with a loaded sub-machine gun in her hands. Not a barbie doll, not a teeny make-up set but a SUB MACHINE GUN.
This child will not be allowed to pray in school, will not be taught from the Bible in her school. This Christmas she will not be allowed to sing carols in her class, BUT it was just fine for her to turn up for lessons on how to use an Uzi machine gun.
Next week is my 75th birthday and I have lived long enough to say that a world that forsakes the love of God in Jesus Christ is a world that will go stark raving mad.
Will some one out there please agree with me?
Ian
One of my good friends, a man of great stature in the preaching world, was called Walter Best. His ministry had much impact in the town of Peterboro where he pastored a large church.
One Monday morning my phone rang. It was Elanor his wife, asking me to join her at St Margaret's Hospital in Toronto. Wally was in a coma after suffering a massive heart attack. He had been clinically dead for several minutes but, after skilled intervention, they had revived him. However, things were not good.
"No More Tears" baby shampoo was the only anointing oil I had in the house, so armed with a bottle I set out for Toronto.
I was met by by Elanor ( a woman of strong faith) who directed me to the emergency facility. The beds, in this state-of-the-art ward, were arrayed in a circle like numbers on a clock face with the nursing station in the center.
Wally was lying at one-o-clock on the dial.He was unclothed with wires and tubes hanging off him. With permission from the nurse I went to his bed,took his hand and spoke his name. There was no reaction. It was time for the shampoo. I shook the bottle and about half the contents finished on Wally's chest and when I prayed I found my hands slipping among all the fixtures. I didn't think that God was worried about the lack of protocol. I just asked Him to rebuke death
(which has a real presence) and restore Wally to life and health.
Then I spoke in Wally's ear "Remember you are due to preach for me in November. Squeeze my hand if you are going to be there." Sure enough, still snoring in his coma, Wally squeezed my hand.
Later that year, Wally, the Prince among preachers, preached from behind my pulpit his first sermon after been discharged from hospital, and it was a good one.
Faith in Christ and "No More Tears" baby shampoo had worked!
Jubilate.
Ian
We can all breathe a sigh of relief. The latest pronouncement from the body that studies world climate tells us that the warming cycle that was a threat to the planet is officially over. In fact the 'pause ' began in 1998 and will not commence again until 2030.
Professor Ka-Kit Tung, the noted climatologist from Washington University, and his counter-part Refo Knutti from Berlin have spoken. The great Pacific Ocean, the driver of world temperatures, has gone into a period of inversion and the deeper waters have now risen to the surface to cool off the sweating earth.
Really, as if we didn't know this already.
In Canada we endured the coldest winter for 60 years and have just suffered a lousy summer that reminded us of being back in England, our home and native land.
In the Victorian era Lord Hardinge wrote in a pithy letter to Lord Curzon, the Vice-regent of India:
"Really Curzon, you must learn to suffer fools more gladly, after all they constitute the majority of the world's population."
It could well be so, but as far as the voodoo scientists are concerned, absolutely true.
Jubilate.
Ian
