All the self righteous RINOs who hate President Trump because they view him as a back sliding heathen remind me of the equally arrogant self righteous Pharisees that Rabbi Kirk chastiseshttps://t.co/DE7hUBaaS3pic.twitter.com/Y2AZoQOeCT
— #StopTheSteal 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 POTUS Elect (@adagioforstring) November 30, 2020
— #StopTheSteal 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 POTUS Elect (@adagioforstring) November 30, 2020
Tenth Avenue North - "You Are More" counters the attitude of the self righteous supposedly "principled Republicans" who look down their noses against President Trump https://t.co/vj0YAdOq8Spic.twitter.com/fFF4pgCubW
— 🔶#StopTheSteal 🔶 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 🔶 (@adagioforstring) December 4, 2020
Here's the quote I was looking for - Sharyl Attkisson asserted that the CIA coined the phrase "conspiracy theory" to smear people who disagreed with them & shame them into silencehttps://t.co/yPeK5TxQQnpic.twitter.com/O5fiYCsYLm
— Grand Poobah Elect 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 24, 2020
The priest preached against "conspiracy theorists" bust he didn't elaborate on what specific conspiracies he disapproves -but I inferred he was possibly taking a swipe at President Trump supporters since in other sermons he seems to be a leftist who calls Israel 🇮🇱 "Palestine" 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/n0ztUVZayq
— Grand Poobah Elect 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 24, 2020
The sermon talked about the irony of a Cardinal who was caught embezzling money threatening to sue newspapers for reporting on his corruption for ruining his chances at becoming pope 🙄😒 pic.twitter.com/cysoT0UTSs
— Grand Poobah Elect 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 21, 2020
But then - not to sound Pharisaical - we're exhorted how we can live better lives and to avoid acting like heathens pic.twitter.com/19M4Iv9oVn
— Grand Poobah Elect 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 21, 2020
— Grand Poobah Elect 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 14, 2020
The priest usually gives apolitical sermons but he focused on the "let us love one another" verse "we get caught in polemics, we get caught in having to prove ourselves right"
So I'm not certain if he's subtweeting anybody or just making a general observation pic.twitter.com/xvEerCj6PY
— Grand Poobah Elect 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 14, 2020
The more you shout "Let My People Go" away from socialist slavery the more outraged satan becomes and hopes you become demoralized and give up pic.twitter.com/5L0k7aiwTI
— Grand Poobah Elect 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) November 11, 2020
The sermon didn't entirely satisfy me. The priest asserted that the parable was just a metaphor about how we should invest our earthly riches which are temporary and fleeting pic.twitter.com/HEXdrsXgHl
Below is the 1936 Father's Day sermon "A Father's Failure" from Methodist preacher Reverend Clovis G. Chappell
that appears in his book: Chappell, Clovis G. Chappell's Special Day Sermons. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983. Print. I included short editorial comments, such as giving chapter and verse of the Bible verses cited in Chappell's sermon, between square brackets [] I enclosed longer discursive comments, such as poem titles of verses Chappell quoted, between scissor snips ✂️--------------------------------------- A FATHER'S FAILURE (FATHER'S DAY) "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" II SAMUEL 18:33
The death of Absalom, hanging from a tree by his hair
(14th-century German miniature).
Here is an exceedingly bitter cry. It tends to make our blood run cold after all these years. There are tears upon it that have not been dried by the hot suns of centuries. Who is this that is giving way to such an abandon of grief? Surely it must be some woman, some mother perchance, whose empty arms are aching for the laddie that she has loved and lost. No, that is not the case. This is not the wail of a woman, but of a man; not of a mother, but of a father. It is King David breaking his heart over what he regards as the greatest failure of his life.
I
Wherein has David failed? Surely his failure is not full-orbed. In many respects he has been vastly successful. The story of his thrilling career reads like a romance. He has come up from the ranks. Once he was only a shepherd lad with no great standing even in his own family. But he has a mind that was brilliant as the kiss of sunlight upon clear water. He was possessed of a dauntless courage. If tradition is correct, he had the genius of a poet. While, at his worst, he was a sinner; at his best, he was a great saint. Then he was vastly attractive. Upon all with whom he came into contact he cast a spell that was ll but irresistible. Then, too, he was a practical man of affairs with his feet firmly fixed on the ground. He was a many-sided man, eminently fitted by nature to make good in any situation.
And make good he did. He climbed by rapid strides till he became king, not by right of birth, but by right of ability. As king he served his people well. He proved himself at once a great soldier and a great statesman. He soon succeeded in welding a few scattered, quarreling tribes into a compactly organized nation. He made a success financially. Much of the vast wealth that went into building of the Temple came through his hands. In fact so wisely did he reign, that his people, throughout their subsequent history, looked back to his day as the Golden Age of Israel. Had he lived in out day we should doubtless have written a book about him entitled "From Shepherd's Tent to King's Palace." This book would certainly have found a place in "The Success Series" and have become a best seller.
In what, then, did this greatly successful man fail? He failed as a father. As a result of that failure, the body of his handsome, gifted, and favorite son is now lying, a crushed wreck in a pit in the wilderness. Therefore, while others would surely have been thrilled by the reading of David's biography, I seriously doubt if he himself could have read it with any real satisfaction. The very brilliancy of his success in certain directions must have served to give only the greater emphasis to his failure in another. As he read he would have realized tat his winnings had been many and worthful. He had certainly won a secure place in the hearts of his people. But in spite of all this, the book would have left him cold. He would have been made to feel that, after all, he had majored on minors, and that his success, though very real, had been bought at too great a price.
And this is the record of so many men who are otherwise successful. I have in mid a certain gentleman who out of small beginnings succeeded in building a fortune of several millions. His brilliant success as a financier blazoned his name to the world and made him at once an object of envy and honor. But his wealth, I am told by one who knew him well, became a weight instead of wings. It caught and held him somewhat as a piece of flypaper catches and holds a fly. In his efforts to be free, he was at times little better than a madman. Of course he had little or no time for his family. His boys grew into soft and pulpy manhood. They were far less suited to cope with their situation than their hard-working father had been to cope with his. When he died, his gold seemed to sweep over them a bit like an avalanche. They were completely swamped by their unearned wealth. Thus this father, while proving himself a conspicuous success in the building of a fortune, proved himself a yet more conspicuous failure in the building of men. [I'm not certain who Chappell is subtweeting with this anecdote].
A few years ago, at one of our state fairs, a crowd was gathered about a prize hog. That hog was about all that a hog ought to be. His hair was parted in the middle and nicely combed. His hoofs were manicured in such a fashion as to have roused the envy of a movie star. Everybody who saw that hog realized that the man who raised him knew his business. Now, the boy who was set to look after this hog seemed to have been chosen as a foil to further emphasize his perfection. He was a little wizen-faced, hollow-chested, hatchet-heeled fellow who seemed bent upon burning up all the cigarettes in the world, and that as quickly as possible. He would not have walked a mile, I dare say, for his favorite brand, for he did not seem to have strength enough. He had to evidently found his unlucky strike [guess a pun on a brand name]
But the most startling fact about the whole situation was this: The father of the boy and the owner of the hog was the same man. In the hog business this father was a huge success. In the boy business he was an utter failure. And in spite of his vast abilities this also was one of the tragedies of the life of David.
II
But why does David take his failure so hard? Why is his heart so completely broken?
1. It is broken because of his deep and tender love for the son that he has lost. This I say, in spite of the fact that he was only a father. Fathers are not generally credited with doing much loving, you know. They are not supposed greatly to care. To be convinced that this is the common view, it is only necessary to contrast the celebration of Mother's Day with that of Father's Day. On the former we come together in greater numbers. We come with our largest handkerchiefs, for the atmosphere is redolent of sentiment, and we are ready at the slightest provocation to burst into tears. On Father's Day we still bring our handkerchiefs, but we use them to stifle our yawns rather than to dry our tears. However unlike the Master dad may be in other respects, he is at least like him in this, that he has made himself of no reputation.
Now, this lack of popularity is, of course, in part, his own fault, but it is not altogether so. In my opinion it is at once unfortunate and unfair. I believe, as another has suggested, that a golden halo for mother is altogether fitting. It blesses both us who give and her that receives. But I believe also that it would be good, if we could find in our hearts to do so, to give a "little tin halo" to father now and then. It might serve to encourage him to do better. Then I ask it in the name of fair play. As I think of my own mother I think of one who was sunny and full of laughter, with never a thought of herself. As I think of my father, I think of one who was more rugged and stern, but whose unselfish devotion to his own could no more be doubted than hers. David is a father, but in spite of the fact his heart is broken over the loss of his boy.
2. Then David is crushed because his loss is without remedy. There are some mistakes that we can correct. Having blundered, we may promise ourselves to do better next time. But in many instances there is no next time. That is the tragic note in that "exceeding bitter cry" of Esau. [ Genesis 27:34 ] We read that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing, he found no place for repentance. That does not mean that God refused to forgive him. It only means that he found no way of undoing the past. [ Esau was the victim of Jacob / Israel 's lying thieving treachery, tho ] He could not get back into yesterday and have placed in his hands again the big opportunities that were his on life's bright morning long ago. What was done could never be undone. It is this realization that makes the grief of David all the more bitter. He is facing the fact that of the things that have no next time, one, at least, is the rearing of a son. How many things he now feels that he could do for Absalom were he only a little boy again! But that can never be. Therefore, there is the agony of utter hopelessness in his cry, "O my son Absalom, O my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee!"
[ 2 Samuel 18:33 ]
3. But the note of supreme bitterness in the sorrow of David, that which brings his grief to its tragic climax, is the haunting fear that the boy that he has lost hopelessly he has also lost needlessly. He has lost him when he might have saved him. "Had I only been a better father to him, had I only acted differently," he keeps telling his tortured soul, "then he would be with me now instead of yonder in the pit, under the stones. I have lost him and it's all my fault." This is the nagging fear that becomes a conviction that he cannot shake off. It is a conviction that bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. [ Proverbs 23:32 describes the effect of wine versus an unfilial child]. His loss would have been hard enough if he could have persuaded himself that he had done his best. But this he cannot do. His hell is that such a persuasion is impossible.
One day in Texas a farmer was in the field plowing cotton. With him were his two small boys. He looked up from his task to see a large dog coming toward them. This dog was snapping at the cotton stalks, and the farmer saw that he was mad. At once he put himself between his boys and the dog. He told them to run for refuge to a nearby cotton bin, while he kept the dog away. The boys made good their escape. But not so the father. He was forced to fight the dog, and that with no weapon but his pocket knife. As a result he was bitten from his face to his feet. Medical science could do nothing for him. But during his lucid intervals, as death crept upon him, he would look into the face of his wife with a smile and say, "Don't you worry about me. I saved our boys." And he went out to meet God unafraid. I think he could have done so, even if the boys had died with him, seeing that he did his best. [ Chappell can really be Debbie Downer at times - it's not bad enough the father in his original anecdote was mauled to death by a rabid dog, Chappell has to imagine both of his sons killed, too ]
But to lose when we might have done better, that is "sorrow's crown of sorrow." And that is the pathetic plight of David. He has lost his son -- lost him hopelessly, and lost him needlessly.
✂️---------------------------------------
"sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." is a line from ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON's poem "Locksley Hall"which seem appropriate since Tennyson also employs an anecdote about dogs:
Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.
✂️---------------------------------------
III
How did David come to make this terrible failure?
He did not do so, I am sure, because Absalom was born a traitor. He was born with a capacity for treachery, but he was also born with a capacity for faithfulness and loyalty. "What manner of child shall this be?" was asked by a group who stood about the cradle of John the Baptist. [ Luke 1:66 ] Is there any sure answer to such a question? The Catholic Church has always believed that there is. As it looks into the face of a little child, it says without hesitation, "This child will be Catholic." The Jews believe that there is an answer to that question. As they look into the face of a baby, they do not hesitate to say, "This child will be a Jew." But Protestantism is often far less sure. That is one of our chief weaknesses. Too often we answer, "The Lord only knows!" And then hurry about our business or pleasure. Yet both the Scriptures and experience teach that if we train a child in the way he shall go, when he is old, he will not depart from it.
If, then, David did not fail because failure was inevitable, why, I repeat, did he fail? There are, I think, two outstanding reasons.
1. He failed because he shifted the responsibility for the care of his son upon the shoulders of others instead of taking it upon himself. What he did in this last scene is, I think, typical of his entire relationship to Absalom. When his soldiers were going out to battle, a battle that was to determine whether he himself was to keep his crown and his life, it was not of these that he was thinking. He was thinking only of his loved and treacherous son. "Deal gently for my sake," he told his officers in the presence of the army. [ 2 Samuel 18:5 ] But when the army had marched out of sight, he was doubtless very uneasy. "My officers are good and loyal men," he probably kept telling himself. "Still I am greatly afraid for my son. I should have gone myself. Yes, at all costs I should have made the safety of my boy a personal matter."
But who is that coming across the plain? It is a messenger. The king is all solicitude, but his anxiety is only for his son. "Victory!" the messenger shouts through panting lips. But the father has no ear for such a message. There is but one question, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" [ 2 Samuel 18:29 ] The messenger did not have the heart to tell, but yonder comes another, "Victory!" he shouts also. But David asks that same eager, anxious question, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" Then comes the tragic answer, and David is a broken old man. "O my son Absalom," he sobs, "I am so sorry now that I did not go out even at the cost of my life. Better a million times that I should be lying under the stones than you." [ 2 Samuel 18:33 ]
Now, what David did in this instance, I repeat, he has done through the years. It is true that he has a good excuse for his conduct. We are in no sense disposed to judge him harshly. He has been a man of many cares. He has been burdened by matters of state. Naturally he has not had much time for his children. But we cannot shut our eyes to the pathos of it all. For, as a result, he never really got acquainted with Absalom, never gained his confidence, never won his heart. In his younger years, when he had a broken toy, Absalom never thought of going to his father about it. Nor did he think of doing so in later years when he had a broken heart. Father and son were both most fascinating, but they never became friends. And yet David gave Absalom everything except himself.. But failing to give himself, he failed altogether. Thus he lost a treasure far more priceless than his crown.
How David would have envied the humble father of whom his son could say this:
"He's the best thing, daddy, is
When he ain't got the rheumatiz,
Gives me pennies and good advice,
'Bout keeping clean and being nice,
Saying please, and don't deceive,
Handkerchief, instead of sleeve.
Seems just like 'at daddy knew,
He was once a small boy, too.
Second table for him, I spec,
With nothing but the chicken neck.
Anyhow he always says,
Give the kid the best there is.
And when Ma sends me off to bed,
He always takes the light ahead,
And holds my hand and talks maybe,
About the things that used to be,
When he and Uncle was little boys,
And all about their games and toys,
What am I gonner be? Gee whiz,
I'm gonner be like daddy is.
I'd rather be like him, 'ijing,
Than president or anything.
He's like Ma says angels is
When he ain't got the rheumatiz."
An online version of Rodeheaver's book can be found here with a slightly different version of Nichols' verse written in slang vernacular:
And the sentiment that Nichols summarized in one line "Handkerchief, instead of sleeve" was expounded upon in an entire blog post: McKay, Kate, and Brett McKay. “Why Carry a Handkerchief?” The Art of Manliness, 26 May 2018, www.artofmanliness.com/articles/every-man-should-carry-a-handkerchief/.
"Handkerchiefs are, well, pretty handy. While women carry a purse stocked with things like tissue packs (and enough supplies to survive on a desert island for several days), most men do not. And yet our noses run just as often as our female counterparts. When you carry a hankie, you don’t have to go scrounging around for a tissue to deal with your dripping shnoz or wipe your nose on your sleeve."
✂️---------------------------------------
But David was too busy. As so many today, he "passed the buck," lost his boy, and broke his own heart.
2. The second reason for David's failure was his bad example. There was a time, after he had become a father, that he allowed himself a most tragic visit to the far country. He became a prodigal. In utter disregard to his obligations to others, he took a woman to whom he had no right [ Bethsheba ]. Later he murdered her husband to conceal his crime [ Uriah - who may, or may not, have been black ].
uhm...I never heard that either Uriah the Hittite &/or Goliath the Giant were black - but some random website is accusing David of being racist for ethnically cleansing black people in the Middle East https://t.co/svYCh2qBH9pic.twitter.com/OYHYt1Vbne
— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) May 24, 2018
No wonder that when his oldest son wanted a woman for himself, he took her ruthlessly, even though she was his half sister. Had not his father set him the example? And that father, having done so, dared not punish his brutal son. Thus Absalom felt called upon to take vengeance into his own hands and punish his brother. All this brought an ever-widening chasm between himself and his father until it ended in utter tragedy. No wonder, therefore, that David felt, and rightly so, that he had the blood of his ruined boy on his own hands. He had employed two most effective methods of destruction, a bad example and neglect.
But, you answer, was not David a good man? Yes, David repented of his terrible sin and God in his mercy forgave him. But, while David's repentance brought him personal salvation, it did not bring salvation to his wayward boy. David made one excursion into the far country, and Absalom followed his steps; but when David came back, so far as this son was concerned, he came back alone. That is a tragedy that has happened times without number. Years ago I had a neighbor who was the father of a large family. He was a drinking man, though not a drunkard. He was friendly toward religion, though he seldom went to church. But when he was between fifty and sixty years of age, he was soundly and happily converted. How hard he tried to atone for his wasted years! How eager he was to reach his children, all of whom had now grown to manhood and womanhood! I have seen him stand up in the little village church to read a bit, only to burst into tears. But his children were not softened by these tears -- they were only shamed by them. They went with him into the far country, but the poor broken father came back alone. May God save us from such a tragedy! That he may do so, let us as parents in the fear of God take the responsibility for the welfare of our children upon ourselves.
✂️---------------------------------------
While searching for author and title of Roland A. Nichols "Daddy" poem, I found that this entire sermon including poem was included in book Giddens, Howard P, and Michael L. Ruffin. Why Be a Christian?: The Sermons of Howard P. Giddens. Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 2007. Print.
There are a couple of pages missing from the online book. Unfortunately, the page that includes the beginning of this sermon that would indicate whether Giddens gave credit to Chappell are missing online
Since Chappell published his book in 1936 and Giddens book was published in 2007, it appears that he clearly has claim to precedence. However, the introduction of Giddens' book asserts that Giddens wrote his sermons starting in the 1930s
"The sermons in this collection were prepared and preached by Dr. Giddens between the 1930s and the 1960s. The earliest ones were written while he was a pastor of the New Castle (Kentucky) Baptist Church, during his years as a seminary student. The latest ones were written while he was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Athens, Georgia, his last pastorate before going to Mercer to teach. He filed each sermon in an individual envelope on which he wrote the title of the sermon, the scripture text, and the places at which and the dates on which he preached it. Many of these sermons were pulled from envelopes on which a long list of places and dates is written. I like to think of those as his greatest hits."
I read through the Foreword of Giddens' book and saw no mention of Chappell, so I searched the text for his name and found that neither Giddens nor the editor of his book, James C. Elder, Jr provided any credit to Mr. Chappell:
Google books version of Chappell's book does not provide a preview option, but it does allow limited search capability. I search of Chappell's book for Giddens' name returned no results:
Since Giddens was a seminar student in the 1930s at the same time Chappell was already a published author, my hypothesis is that the Father's Day sermon in Howard P. Giddens' book was quite possibly plagiarized from Chappell's book. In fairness, Giddens may have given credit to Chappell on the pages missing from the online version of his book, so I'll reserve judgment and as Jonathan Edwards wrote, we're all sinners in the hands of an angry God and we all need his grace and mercy to get to heaven:
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in Works of Jonathan Edwards, Sermons and Discourses, 1739-1742 (WJE Online Vol. 22) , Ed. Harry S. Stout (Yale Univ. Press, 1957-2008),404-418
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince: and yet 'tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment; 'tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep: and there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up; there is no other reason to be given why you han't gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship: yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you don't this very moment drop down into hell."
I'm Catholic and am usually only vaguely aware of the happier stories that end up on stained glass windows, like elephants in Noah's ark and Moses with the ten commandments. Rape and murder at a sheep sheering contest usually don't end up in liturgical artwork, at least in the suburban churches that I attended.
More on the soap opera of Absalom and his dysfunctional family can be found here Fletcher, Elizabeth. “MAACAH, Bible Woman: Wife of King David, Mother of Absalom, Tamar.” Women In The Bible, 2006, www.womeninthebible.net/women-bible-old-new-testaments/maacah-davids-wife/.
I can't find the stained glass windows of Noah to illustrate my happy window theory. I could only find photos of the stained glass windows of New Testament stories from Saint Patrick Cathedral in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , the church I attended in my youth. My recollection, is that one side of the church had windows that illustrated Old Testament stories, and the other illustrated these New Testament stories.
Trump train supporters often cite King David to rationalize Trump's moral shortcomings,
Your biblical namesake David slept with Bathsheba & had her husband killed on the front. Didn’t God nevertheless make David His man? https://t.co/C0WddhuVJa
— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) May 5, 2018
Perry Stone: [ quoting the King James version of 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Philippians 3:13-14] "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." So in other words, once you enter into a redemptive covenant with the Lord, Jesus Christ, all things are passed away.
Perry Stone: So when you're sitting at the king's table, you might know that you can't walk. When you're sitting at the king's table, you might know that you've been wounded, just like Mephibosheth.
Perry Stone: You might know that you're carrying an injury, just like Mephibosheth. But guess what? Nobody around you can see the wound. Nobody around you will ever know it's there because you're sitting at the king's table. You might be broken from beneath, but you're still blessed from above. So for those of you who are watching the world wide telecast of "Manna - Fest"
Perry Stone: I want to encourage you to do something. The Bible says [quoting Psalms 147:3 ] "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." When you can enter into a redemptive covenant, not only are your sins forgiven, to where the shame is removed. God says [quoting Isaiah 61:7 ] "I will give you double for shame." There is shame in sin. There is shame in being disobedient. There are things that you do in life that you are ashamed of. But listen! Mephibosheth's name when you take the Hebrew roots has the connotation of shame.
✂️---------------------------------------
I know, Wikipedia isn't the best source of information, but their article on the etymology of Mephibosheth's name:
After the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, Mephibosheth's nurse took him and fled in panic. ... The Hebrew name is מְפִיבֹשֶׁת Mefivoshet, meaning "from the mouth of shame" or "from the mouth of god Bashtu", or Merib-baal (Bib Heb: מְרִיב־בַּעַל, Trans: Meriv-Ba'al, Mərîḇ-Báʻal).
✂️--------------------------------------- Perry Stone: But the king to the shame from him. God will remove the shame from your past. He will remove the shame of your youth - the things that you did. You know I think it's a pity sometimes that people will enter certain arenas in life and the higher they go whether it's in the politics or even spiritually, somebody comes along and wants to talk about something they did thirty and forty years ago that they were long forgiven of. That was back in B.C. - Before Christ. You know, if people brought up everything you did before Christ, how embarrassed would you be? What kind of shame would you carry? Aren't you glad that the past is forgiven? Aren't you glad that Jesus has redeemed us and he's cast our sins into the sea of forgetfulness, never to remember them again [citing Micah 7:19] ? Oh, I know people can remember, but God won't. So today, may I encourage you that if you're not a believer, if you've never come to the Lord Jesus, say, "Jesus, I'm a sinner. Forgive me of my sins." Why don't you do that? And ask him to heal you emotionally, mentally, and physically. Here's the great thing. You don't have to have a lot of people around you. You may live in a country where there's not even a church. But you sit down there, you call on the Lord with your mouth. I'll tell you what will happen. You'll sense His presence if you'll believe! When you call upon His name, He'll be there.
Clip from Perry Stone sermon "Blessed Above - Broken Beneath"
And here's a Korean version of the story of Mephibosheth:
David French is acting a like a concern troll Iago trying to depress & suppress the Evangelical vote to help out a blue wave & ensure planned parenthood is fully funded & more babies are killed - [which I primarily blame RINOs in Congress vs Trump for] pic.twitter.com/KYp46IxEjQ
— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) May 5, 2018
Concern troll 1: Don't you think you're being too hard on the Queen?
Concern troll 2: Maybe you should rethink the "hiding out" stance
Concern troll 3: We're on YOUR side, Snow!
I trust #NeverTrumpers are following their principles, but I've lost the logic now. Porn Star Guy vs a party of Marxist abortionists who oppose both 1A and 2A is not a hard choice, even for evangelicals. Plus @realDonaldTrump is doing a great job within the Constitution!
Below is the 1936 New Year's Day sermon "The Cynic's New Year" from Methodist preacher Reverend Clovis G. Chappell
that appears in his book: Chappell, Clovis G. Chappell's Special Day Sermons. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983. Print.
I included short editorial comments, such as giving chapter and verse of the Bible verses cited in Chappell's sermon, between square brackets [] I enclosed longer discursive comments, such as hymn hymn titles of lyrics Chappell quoted, between scissor snips ✂️---------------------------------------
Here is a man for whom life has obviously grown stale. He has suffered heavy and tragic losses. Among these, surely one of the most pathetic is the loss of his new year's day. Of course January 1 came to him every twelve months, even as it did to others. But it had for him no thrill of expectancy. It never meant a resurrection of hope. It never brought a revival of courageous effort to attain the heights. No longer did he allow himself to be betrayed by it into making rash resolutions for the achieving of the impossible. In fact this day had ceased altogether to be for him the beginning of a new year. It was only the beginning of another year of boredom and yawns, of disgust and despair, of wearily trudging through a monotonous waste of desert sand.
Now, the trouble with this man is that he has allowed himself to become a cynic. His cynicism is bold and pronounced. He calls himself the preacher. Being a preacher, he follows the time-honored custom of taking a text. Of course a good text is the first step toward producing a good sermon. But this preacher is not at all happy in his selection of a text. He does not select a passage that is warm with a sense of the love and fatherhood of God. He does not select one that is radiant with the expectation of the coming of a better day. No more is his text buoyant with the bracing assurance that the life that has lost its tang may recover its freshness and buoyancy. On the contrary, his text is about as sunny as a sob. It is about as hopeful as a wail of despair. Listen to the bitterness of it: "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." [ Ecclesiastes 1:2 ] No wonder that for him there is no new thing under the sun.
I
How has he come by his cynicism? I don not think that it is born merely of ignorance and inexperience. He is no youthful student just in from college, eager to impress his elders with his superiority. I do not take it that he is trying to shock us with his bold and daring wickedness. We are never greatly startled by hearing some young chap swaggering boast of his unbelief. We are not greatly frightened when he utters wisecracks as to the worthlessness of life in general. We realize that often he is only a little puffed up over his superficial knowledge; that he is perhaps wiser now, at least in his own estimation, than he will ever be again. Often, too, he is only parading in the borrowed garments of cynicism. But such is not the case with this man. His is far more than a mere pose.
No more is this man a cynic because he is passing through a temporary fit of the blues. The best and strongest men sometimes lose heart. Elijah was a man of tremendous courage, but he ran for his life one day, to fling himself down under a juniper tree and request for himself that he might die. John the Baptist was a man of colossal strength, but after days spent in a dungeon he began to wonder seriously if his while ministry as the forerunner of the Messiah had been no more than a tragic mistake. But these men were not at their best. Often we utter sentiments in our hours of depression of which we are heartily ashamed when we come to our more normal days of sunshine and hope. But the cynicism of this preacher is far more than a passing fit of depression.
There are also those who become cynical through great disappointment. Dean Swift was such a man. He dreamed a big dream of power, but the prize that he sought to grasp somehow escaped him. He did not take his defeat cheerfully. He became exceedingly bitter. Disappointed by the world of men, he sought to get back at them through the sharpest and most cutting sarcasm. "His laughter jars upon us," says[ William Makepeace ] Thackeray, "after seven score years . . . . . He was always alone, alone and gnashing, except when Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that went, darkness and utter night closed over him."
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He was embittered by a great disappointment. But this was not the case with the preacher. So far as we know he had realized all ambitions to the full.
Then there are those whose lives are darkened by great suffering. Job stood up bravely under blow after blow. At last pain laid hold of him and tortured him with unspeakable anguish. It was then that he lost his grip. It was then that he cursed the day that he was born. It was then that he looked eagerly toward death and to a resting place in the grave where the wicked cease to trouble and the weary are at rest. But his wail of despair was tortured out of him by the cruel fingers of desperate pain. Many a man on the rack has confessed to that of which he was not guilty. But this cynic, so far as we know, was in perfect health, and had never been the victim of any physical suffering.
Why, then, I repeat, is this man a cynic? He would have us believe that his is a deliberate and reasoned cynicism. And in a sense this is true. He is the type of cynic that has least excuse for existing, for life seems to have dealt kindly and bountifully with him. He has not been scourged into his cynicism by bitter suffering and heartache. He rather tells us that having tested the things that men think most worth-while, he has found them to be vanity; that having done much experimenting in the laboratory of life, he finds no other position than that of cynic possible. But in reality his cynicism is not so much a child of the head as of the heart. His real trouble is that he has no faith in God. Being without God, he is naturally also without hope.
II
What are some of the things that he has found to be vanity?
1. This physical universe. Other men have looked about them in this marvelous world and have been made to wonder and worship. The psalmist, as he looked into the heavens, heard them "declaring the glory of God." Addison, looking into the same heavens and watching the stars in their courses, sang:
"What though in solemn silence all
Move round that bright celestial ball;
.......................
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine
'The hand that made us is divine.'"
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Addison's text was adapted to hymn "The Spacious Firmament on High"
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And Mrs. [ Elizabeth Barrett ] Browning found earth literally "crammed with Heaven and every common bush aflame with God." [From the poem "Aurora Leigh"] But when this preacher looked he saw nothing to give him a thrill. He saw nothing beautiful or exciting. He could not look at earth or sky without stifling a yawn.
"O world as God has made it! All is beauty!" sings [ Robert ] Browning [from the poem "The Guardian Angel"] "No such thing," answers this cynic. "I see no beauty at all. Why look, the winds move in circles. The breeze that fans your face today will come back tomorrow. It never gets anywhere. The rivers flow into the sea, but the sea is never full because the water is carried back into the hills and poured out into the rivers again. Therefore the waters are moving in circles. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west with monotonous regularity. The petty race of men are toiling heatedly at the same tasks at which their dead fathers have toiled. The whole business is a wretched treadmill, about as purposeful and exciting as a squirrel chasing itself in a cage." [this seems to be a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 1:5-7 ]
2. Pleasure. This cynic gave himself to the task of having a good time. His resources were abundant. He flung himself into the enterprise with abandon. There was no pleasure from which he held his hand. Every road that gave promise of a thrill he traveled. But he comes back from all his quests spitting the ashes of his burnt-out hopes from his lips saying, "Vanity of vanities. There is no new thing under the sun." [ Ecclesiastes 1:2 ] And it is a pity that every votary of pleasure in this amusement-mad day would not read and take to heart at least this much of his confession.
3. Achievement. This man set himself to the task of doing things that the world counts most worth doing. He became a builder. He constructed palaces. He beautified cities. He changed landscapes into gardens. The wilderness and the solitary place became glad at his touch, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed as a rose. In addition he amassed a vast fortune. He heaped up silver and gold. He possessed himself of a great retinue of slaves. But when he had completed all the enterprises to which he turned his hand, again he muttered in disgust, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"
4. Wisdom. Next the preacher set himself to acquire wisdom. One province of wisdom is to know. By experimenting in this field he reached the conclusion that wisdom is better than folly, as light is better than darkness. But he discovered that because the wise man knows more than the fool, he also suffers more. Therefore, he concluded that it is better to be a happy fool than a wretched wise man. [Seems to be a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 2:14-15] Naturally he flung away from wisdom as a vain and futile thing, for, of course, "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." [from Thomas Gray poem "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"]
Then wisdom means not only the power to know, but to put knowledge into effect. It is power to be. To gain wisdom is to gain virtue. It is to win goodness. But he decided that this was also vain, since goodness met no reward. In proof of this it is striking that he appeals to the experience of another rather than to his own. Being good was not quite in his line. He tells, therefore, of a poor wise man who saved his city. "But," says he, "nobody appreciated him." And if he met no appreciation at the hands of men, neither did he meet any at the hands of God. Therefore, to be wise is absolutely useless. It brings no reward, either here or hereafter. "How dies the wise man?" he asks. "Even as the fool." And both of them die as the beast. The wise, the fool, and the beast all end in a common heap of mud. [Seems to be a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 2:15-16]
5. Man. The preacher reached a desperate conclusion that man also is vanity. This is true for two reasons.
(1) Because mankind is almost universally bad. This cynic did not know any good folks. Being a man, and having some loyalty to his own sex, and deciding to spare himself, he said that there might be one good man in a thousand; but as for a good woman, such a thing did not exist. How lonely he must have been, being absolutely surrounded by vicious and wicked people, and being himself about the only decent man alive. [Seems a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 7:28 ]
(2) Then, not only are men uniformly bad, but they are doomed to stay that way. "The crooked," he declares, "can never be made straight." [ Ecclesiastes 1:15 ] To my mind this is by far the most cynical, the most utterly hopeless thing that he says. The Bible teaches the fact of human sin, but it teaches with equal emphasis that man may be saved from sin. The Bible teaches that men are lost, but it teaches with equal certainty that they are capable of being saved. But this man lived in a drab world of despair where the sinner has no possible chance of ever becoming a saint; where the prodigal can never leave the swine pen and find his penitent way back to his Father's house. [An allusion to the Parable of the Prodigal Son Luke 15:11-32 ]
The truth of the matter is that the preacher's conception of man is not as a personality at all. He believes that man is a machine. The only God he knows is not a loving heavenly Father. He is a blind, grimy-handed fate. "There is a time for everything under the sun," [ Ecclesiastes 3:1] he declares, and by this he means that man, the machine, has no power of volition, that he responds to certain stimuli without any freedom of choice whatsoever. This cynic you see is a Behaviorist. He is a profound believer in "the New Psychology."
✂️--------------------------------------- A video on Behaviorism:
I don't know to what Chappell referred with the phrase "New Philosophy", but here is the song "My New Philosophy" from the musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"
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Therefore, naturally he concludes that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit." For we are:
"But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks and slays,
And one by one back into the Closet lays."
Now was the practical effect of this lack of faith on the preacher's life? What did his cynicism do to him?
1. It killed all sense of obligation. He had scholarship and vast ability. But the idea that large capacity laid upon him heavy responsibilities to be of service to others was to his mind simply absurd. That poor wise man that saved his city only played the fool. In fact, to his thinking, all talk about duty and obligation was simply silly. He was vastly clever, but being without any sense of responsibility, he was, therefore, morally an infant. He was an intellectual giant, but he was also a spiritual dwarf. In secondary matters he was keen; in matters of supreme importance he was little better than an idiot.
2. His lack of faith paralyzed all effort to help heal the world's open sore.. What others suffered was none of his business in the first place. His motto was, "every fellow for himself and the devil take the hindmost." Then, how foolish to undertake to help folks when he is sure they are mere machines and cannot be helped. How stupid and futile to undertake to make the world better when he knows that what is wrong can never be made right and what is crooked can never be made straight.
3. His cynicism made him wretched. It took all the bloom and beauty out of life. It robbed him of all high expectation of the coming of a better tomorrow. It blotted out every star in his sky. It put him "on a rudderless raft in a shoreless sea." [I'm not certain who Chappell is quoting. Possibly Stuart, John. Sermons. Edinburgh: R. and R. Clark, 1889. Print. with online google book version]
The one man to be congratulated, he thought, was the one that was dead. But better off, even than he, was the one who had never been born. In spite of all his efforts at pleasure, he had to say of laughter, it is vain. Finding nothing new, his biggest thrill is summed up in the one ghastly sentence, "I hated life." His best suggestion to you and me is to eat and drink. "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," he seems to say. [ Shakespeare "MacBeth" Act V Scene V ] "Therefore the best thing to do is to get drunk and forget about it."
There is a story of a man who was once pursued by a fierce beast. At last he took refuge in an old well. When he was near the bottom of this well he discovered a horrible dragon with mouth gaped open, just waiting to receive him. Therefore he stopped his descent and clung to a little bush that grew out of the side of the well. With the beast above him and the dragon below him there was nothing to do but to wait developments. Meantime two mice came out of the side of the well and began to gnaw at the little bush. He saw that he would soon drop into the dragon's mouth, but during the thirty seconds that he still had to live he endeavored to sip a little bit of honeydew of the leaves of the bush to which he clung. This was somewhat the position of out preacher.
IV
But this cynic seems to have come to a discovery of God. Through this discovery his whole attitude toward life was changed. Through it all things became new.
1. Through the discovery of God he came to possess a new sense of duty. After this, he came to say "I ought" and "I owe." He closes his book with one of the most majestic sentences in the Bible. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." [ Ecclesiastes 12:13 ] To discover God is ever to discover duty. The jailer did not notice the bleeding backs of Paul and Silas till he had found Christ. But having found him, he took water the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. [ Acts 16:33 ]
2. Through it he came to a new sense of his personal responsibility. Discovering that man is a creature of obligation, he discovered also that he is to be judged according to the way in which he discharges those obligations. He no longer believed that the wise man and the fool meet a common fate. He believed the opposite. Therefore he warns emphatically: "Rejoice, O young man, in they youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." [ Ecclesiastes 11:9 ]
3. Finally, in the realization of all that he had suffered and all that he had missed, he shows us how to avoid a like tragic folly. How magnificently he puts it! "Remember now thy Creator in the days of they youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." [ Ecclesiastes 12:1] Surely this onetime cynic is here speaking out of his own experience. He has lived through these pleasureless years against which he is now warning us. To him evil days have come, days that were dull and gray, drab and old. He has watched the sweet flower of life wither and rain its dusty petals upon the ground. "But it need not be so with you," he tells us. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, and your sun will ever hang in a morning sky, and life for you will keep its winsome newness from daylight until dark."
But if it so happens that we are no longer young, what then? Suppose we have already journeyed so far into the years that the call, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of they youth," only mocks us with the glory of what might have been and now can be no more; then what has the transformed cynic to say to us? He does not insult our intelligence by telling us that our wasted years do not matter. He knows that not even God can as much with the fraction of a life as he can with the whole of it. Yet he does not leave us hopeless. He gives us only so much of his command as we can bear. His call is this: "Remember now." However completely we may have squandered the year just passed, however listless we may be as we face the year just ahead, if we only dare to remember now, life for us will be remade. Instead of lamenting with the cynic that there is no new thing under the sun we shall shout with Saint Paul, "Old things are passed away; behold they are become new." [ 2 Corinthians 5:17]
The blog title, "noli insipientium iniurias pati" is Latin for "Don't let the turkeys get you down." Benjamin Franklin bookcases the blog header title for two reasons:
1) He allegedly suggested the US adopt the turkey as its official mascot
2) His discovery of electricity helped Al Gore invent the internet
Quantum Physics equation under profile picture explained here
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