Evil--Live Spelt Backwards

 

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Amos 5:14-15 (New International Version)

Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.

 

When I was growing up, Americans referred to America as God’s Own Country. There were still people around who remembered the terrible Civil War—a war to banish the terrible evil of slavery. In those days many still believed that God had allowed (or sent) that war to punish Americans for allowing human bondage in God’s Own Country.

By the time I was old enough to remember anything, we had just won the war against Nazism, genocide, and destruction of freedom. America emerged the richest, most powerful nation on earth.

Since that time evil has crept back in. Or has it rushed in? Ideas like “God is dead” and concerted effort to destroy the family as well as the banning of even the mention of God in education and total denial of the devil—the source of all evil—to his great advantage, have gained strength. The sexual revolution, toleration of openly corrupt politicians, and voluntary destruction of over sixty million fetuses compound the negative effects.

The net result is the almost daily shootings in schools; global warming that ravages our environment; increased terror such as caused by the 9-11 attack; invasions, especially along the southern border of our country; embroilment in wars like Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, and Afghanistan, that have killed our young men by the thousands; increasingly vast expenditures on foreign wars.

O, America, we desperately need to search for good and reject evil before it is too late!

Truly we can borrow this prayer from Amos for our situation:
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant in America!

 

 

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[1] https://howmuch.net/articles/most-expensive-wars-us-history

Divining for Water

 

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Proverbs 20:5 Good News Translation

5 A person's thoughts are like water in a deep well, but someone with insight can draw them out.

 

Dad was president of Solusi College, Rhodesia. The college had a huge problem—lack of water. In that semi-arid land, there was little water to be had. He persuaded the government to send out two experts who suggested that he drill wells in two likely spots at the government’s expense. They found some water but only a pittance for what a college needs. Later Dad got Melvin Sparrow, Sr. to come out to divine for water. He used a forked stick and had the reputation of being able to find water with the stick. The government said they could drill where Sparrow said, and they would pay the expense—if he got more water than they had with their experts. So, Dad drilled where Sparrow said, and they got three times as much water as the previous two wells. The government paid, but it was still only a pittance.

Sometime later Melvin and his wife and their teenage daughter Elaine came out to the college for a visit. Elaine was attractive and very blonde. I was nineteen and very happy to chat with her. In our conversation she admitted that she could divine for water like her dad, however, neither of her two brothers could do it.

Highly skeptical, Ï told her that I didn’t believe that it really worked. I pointed out physics reasons why it couldn’t work. She listened. She had heard this scientific approach before. She stuck to her guns.

We got a forked stick from a nearby tree, and she asked me where the water pipe was that came into the house. She walked across it, and the point of the stick pointed directly at the pipe and continued to point at it whenever she walked over it. Then I took the stick and walked where she had walked. The stick didn’t move at all! I knew it wouldn’t—after all science had no physical laws that would make it do so.

She suggested that she put her hands on mine while I did the same thing. I took the stick, and she laid her hands on the top of my hands. I couldn’t help but enjoy her touch. They were not even close to touching the stick.

Then we walked towards where I knew the water pipe was buried. I was absolutely determined that the stick would not move. It was a macho thing, almost like I was defending my manhood. I clutched the stick with all my strength. As we walked over the pipe, the stick twisted in my hands, almost tearing the skin off the inside of my hands. It continued to point towards the buried water pipe. She removed her hands, and the stick didn’t move no matter where I walked.

I became a believer that she had that power even though I knew of no explanation for the phenomenon. To this day, I have met no one who had any credible explanation. I have met many people who look at me askance and question my sanity when I mention it. I just remember that stick rotating of its own accord in my grip. Was it a dark force? Who knows! Was it a miracle of God? I highly doubt it!

Dear reader, what kind of phenomenon would cause you to believe that Jesus is Almighty God and that He will save you? Think seriously about it. There is no scientific explanation. If you ask for that, you won’t get it.

Thank You, Lord, that You are not willing that any should perish but that all should be saved.

 

 

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